be sued for any resulting injury or wrongful death, regardless of whether it acted in bad faith in denying benefits. Insurers operating ERISA plans enjoy several immunities not available to other types of insurance companies. ERISA preempts all conflicting state laws, including state statutes prohibiting unfair claims practices and causes of action arising under state common law for insurance bad faith. There is no right to a jury trial in ERISA benefits actions. Although Americans normally take for granted the right to testify on their behalf, plaintiffs have no right to present live testimony in ERISA bench trials, in which the judge simply reads through the documents that formed the record originally before the ERISA plan administrator and performs de novo review. Finally, punitive damages are not allowed in actions for ERISA benefits. It has been argued that in the case of health benefits, the effect of all of this may paradoxically have been to leave plan participants worse off than if ERISA had not been enacted. Many persons included among the some 29 million people presently without health care coverage in the United States are former ERISA "subscribers", insurance terminology for Plan beneficiaries, who have been denied benefits-usually on the ground that the prescribed care is not medically necessary or is "experimental"-or dropped from coverage, often because they have lost their jobs due to the very illness for which care was denied. Many consumer and health care advocates have called for a "restoration of the freedom of contract enforcement," to the 75% of Americans insured under these work place group plans-in effect, a repeal of the ERISA preemption. Permitting these insured persons access to customary state remedies (98% of all civil disputes are resolved in state courts) would, they contend, result in a substantial reduction in arbitrary denial of care benefits, simultaneously alleviating a major burden on state Medicaid systems and clogged federal court dockets. Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act exemption ERISA contains an exemption specifically regarding the Hawaii Prepaid Health Care Act (Hawaii Revised Statutes Chapter 393), which was enacted by that state a few months before ERISA was signed into law. As a result, private employers in Hawaii are bound by the rules of that state law in addition to ERISA. The exemption also freezes the law in its original 1974 form, meaning the Hawaii legislature is not able to make non-administrative amendments without Congressional approval. The