Congressional enactment of health care reform is a historic step closer to joining all other industrialized democracies that treat health care as a moral right. Finally. President Barack Obama's signing of the bill and later of changes expected to gain Senate approval should survive legal challenges — but further legislation may be needed to protect Hawaii's trailblazing health care act.

“;Hawaii's premier state health care law remains intact,”; said U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, whose amendment to the bill provides an exemption for the Hawaii law in areas where it is stronger than the federal provisions.

The difference can be significant. For example, while nearly all employers in Hawaii are required to offer health insurance to full-time employees, the federal plan doesn't kick in until 2014 and exempts employers with 50 or fewer employees.

The state's law is complicated by a clause that calls for its termination upon enactment of comprehensive federal health care. The clause stems from a lawsuit at the time of the state law's enactment in 1974.

Standard Oil challenged the Hawaii law at that time and won its case that it violated the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act, enacted in the same year and superseding all state laws relating to employee benefits. In response, Hawaii's congressional delegation secured an exemption from ERISA.

The Legislature amended the state law to provide that it “;terminate ... upon the effective date of federal legislation that provides for mandatory prepaid health care.”;

“;It's an issue,”; Hirono told the Star-Bulletin's editorial board last month.

Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka amended the Senate legislation, to be signed into law today by the president, to preserve the ERISA waiver. However, the state termination clause remains on the state books and could be the foundation for a legal challenge of Hawaii's law if it is not eliminated. To play it safe, the Legislature should provide assurance of the state's health care law by promptly erasing the termination clause or — presumably following the law's automatic termination — reenacting the law without the clause.

Goaded by its tea party believers, Republican members of Congress are already talking about repealing the federal plan. While Gov. Linda Lingle opposes the federal bill, her administration is not among the dozen states threatening to file a lawsuit alleging that requiring people to buy health insurance intrudes on state rights.

More likely, the general public can be expected to appreciate national health care with each passing year, just as it came to embrace Social Security and Medicare. Residents of Hawaii can take pride in leading the way and should be allowed to retain the ingredients of its success.