Sweep Profile Script Free Download
Amaia Novara
Sweep Profile is a free script for a quick and convenient applying of profiles to shape with a modifier Sweep. It provides the ability to set the size of the profile, to set interpolation for profile and path, and to customize the path for the profile files.
Im trying to make a script that takes a window frame profile and sweeps it around selected rectangle curves. The sweep behaves differently with every rail curve. Even if the cross section curve is positioned the same way on every rail the result varies. At the moment the script seems to sweep every cross section with every rail. Any ideas on how to make this work? I want the cross section curve to be generated within grasshopper so i don't have to make a new one for each project.
And quite a few come from js::mjit::JITScript::purgePICs (two
versions) and js::mjit::JITScript::sweepCallICs. According to Dave
Anderson and Chris Leary, there might be some opportunity to poke
the code pages in a less jumping-around-y fashion.
Create a figure object, and set 'Visible' to true so that it opens in a new window, outside of the live script. To visualize the results of the parameter sweep, create a surface plot. Note that initializing the Z component of the surface with NaN creates an empty plot.
Offload computations to parallel workers by using the parfeval function. parameterSweep is a helper function defined at the end of this script that solves the Lorenz system on a partition of the parameters to explore. It has one output argument, so you must specify 1 as the number of outputs in parfeval.
This case involves whether a Missouri statute and its accompanying regulations are preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C. 1001, et seq. The challenged state law essentially forbids health maintenance organizations ("HMOs") from requiring *1138 their enrollees to have their prescriptions filled by mail service pharmacies rather than retail pharmacies. The statute accomplishes this goal by regulating the contracts that HMOs enter with pharmacies. See Mo.Rev.Stat. 354.535.3 and 354.535.4 and 20 C.S.R. 400-7.400 (hereinafter referred to as "H.B. 335"). Plaintiffs assert that H.B. 335 "relates to" employee welfare benefit plans regulated by ERISA, and is therefore preempted. See 29 U.S.C. 1144(a) (2) (A) (preempting state law that "relates to" employee welfare benefit plans). Defendant Keith Wenzel, the Director of the Missouri Department of Insurance, denies this assertion and argues that the law constitutes permissible state regulation of insurance. See 29 U.S.C. 1144(b) (saving state insurance regulation from ERISA preemption).
The material facts in this case are few and undisputed. Plaintiff Express Scripts, Inc. ("Express Scripts") provides prescription drugs through the mail to enrollees of HMOs throughout the United States, including Missouri. Some of these HMO memberships were purchased by ERISA-governed health plans in Missouri. Before H.B. 335 went into effect, Express Scripts was the exclusive provider of 90-day supplies of drug prescriptions for several Missouri-licensed HMO clients. Because of the statute, Express Scripts is no longer the exclusive provider to these customers. Express Scripts and several other Plaintiffs[1] seek a judgment that H.B. 335 is preempted by ERISA.
To provide pharmacy services for enrollees, Missouri-licensed HMOs may use a combination of both retail and mail service pharmacies. Retail pharmacies are stores, such as Walgreens, where an enrollee can purchase prescription medications. The advantage of retail pharmacies is their ability to immediately fill prescriptions that are needed for emergency or acute care needs. Mail service pharmacies, as their name implies, fill enrollees' prescriptions through the mail. Mail service pharmacies have been used by HMOs in Missouri to fill "maintenance prescriptions," 90-day supplies of drugs used to treat conditions such as arthritis and high blood pressure. Patients receiving maintenance prescriptions usually must take their medication every day without interruption, and consequently must have a supply of their prescriptions at all times. Customers obtaining maintenance prescriptions from a retail pharmacist had the opportunity to consult with the pharmacist in person, while customers obtaining such prescriptions through the mail could only speak "with a strange pharmacist through a toll-free number." Def.'s Ex. 6 at 3. Several retail pharmacists have testified that customers have come to their stores seeking short-term prescription refills to meet their needs until a mail service pharmacy is able to send a 90-day supply of the medication. Express Scripts takes 10 to 14 days to fill a mail order prescription. Thus, even HMOs that use mail service pharmacies to provide maintenance prescriptions continue to have retail pharmacies in their networks to fill prescriptions of 30 days or less.
The Missouri legislature has passed a statute, H.B. 335, that forbids HMOs from charging patients higher fees for filling their prescriptions at local pharmacies rather than through mail order pharmacies, as long as the local pharmacies meet the HMOs' specified price requirements:
Mo.Rev.Stat. 354.335.4. Thus, the statute requires HMOs to allow patients to choose between having their maintenance prescriptions filled by a retail pharmacy or a mail service pharmacy, assuming that both kinds of pharmacies are in the HMOs' networks. However, if a retail pharmacy in the network refuses to meet the HMOs' price cost determination, then the HMO may use "benefit design" to encourage enrollees to use the mail service pharmacy.
One legislative purpose in enacting H.B. 335 was to preclude the practice of HMOs from differentiating between pharmacies within their networks by allowing only mail-order pharmacies to fill certain long-term or high volume prescriptions while limiting retail pharmacies to shorter or lesser quantity prescriptions. Another purpose was to allow patients insured through HMOs the option to choose between having their maintenance prescriptions filled at a local retail pharmacy or by mail order. [Harlan Aff. at 6].
The Supreme Court has "long acknowledged that ERISA's preemption provision is clearly expansive." California Div. of Labor Standards Enforcement v. Dillingham Constr., 519 U.S. 316, 324, 117 S. Ct. 832, 136 L. Ed. 2d 791 (1997) (quoting Travelers, 514 U.S. at 656, 115 S.Ct. 1671). The preemption clause has "a broad scope, and an expansive sweep, and [is] broadly worded, deliberately expansive, and conspicuous for its breadth." Id. Nevertheless, "[i]f `relate to' were taken to extend to the furthest stretch of indeterminacy, then for all practical purposes pre-emption would never run its course, for `[r]eally, universally, relations stop nowhere.'" Travelers, 514 U.S. at 655, 115 S. Ct. 1671. Thus, "[t]he mere mention of an ERISA plan in a complaint is not, in and of itself, sufficient to warrant a finding that state law relates to a plan." In Home Health, Inc. v. Prudential Ins. Co. of Am., 101 F.3d 600, 604 (8th Cir.1996).
*1143 Defendant responds that H.B. 335, unlike the Arkansas PPA, regulates only HMOs and does not regulate ERISA plans.[5] This difference is dispositive. In National Park, the Arkansas PPA regulated "health benefit plans," which were defined as "any entity or program that provides reimbursement, including capitation, for health care services." Id. at 816 (quoting Ark.Code Ann. 22-99-203(c)). This sweeping definition included employee welfare benefit plans, which are regulated by ERISA. Id. at 825 (concluding that reference in the Arkansas PPA to "health benefit plans" was an implicit reference to ERISA plans). Although the PPA would have applied to ERISA plans because of this definition, the PPA specifically exempted ERISA plans from its scope. Thus, the exemption had a tangible impact on ERISA plans, which was to exempt them from the PPA. Id. at 824 (finding that the PPA "singles out ERISA employee welfare benefit plans for different treatment under state law."); see also Mackey, 486 U.S. at 830, 108 S. Ct. 2182 (holding that exemption resulted in preemption because it "single[d] out ERISA welfare benefit plans for different treatment under state law.") (emphasis added). By contrast, Missouri's H.B. 335 regulates only HMOs and does not regulate ERISA plans. Consequently, the fact that a later section of the code states that H.B. 335 shall not apply to ERISA plans has absolutely no effect.[6] Even in the absence of this "exemption," H.B. 335 would still apply only to HMOs and not to ERISA plans. This difference distinguishes H.B. 335 from the statutes at issue in National Park and Mackey.
The dispute in this case centers around whether H.B. 335 mandates the structure and administration of ERISA plans, which are two of the St. Mary's factors. Plaintiffs argue that H.B. 335 mandates the structure and administration of prescription benefits because ERISA plans in Missouri no longer have the option of contracting with HMOs that provide maintenance prescription benefits exclusively through mail order pharmacies.
The effects of H.B. 335 are much less pronounced. H.B. 335 does not forbid ERISA plans from using mail-order pharmacies to fill maintenance prescriptions, it merely restricts the ability of HMOs to do so. Not all ERISA plans use HMOs to insure against the risk that their employees will require prescription medication. Some ERISA plans use traditional indemnity insurers, while others self-insure. Thus, an ERISA plan that chose not to use an HMO could still use mail-order pharmacies to fill all maintenance prescriptions.
Although H.B. 335 is different than the statutes that warranted preemption in the Supreme Court cases described above, it is also distinguishable from the statute that was upheld in Travelers. That case involved a New York law that required hospitals to collect surcharges from patients covered by certain commercial indemnity insurers and HMOs, but not from patients covered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Id. at 649, 115 S. Ct. 1671. The Supreme Court held that the surcharges would not preclude uniform administrative practice or the provision of uniform interstate benefit packages, but instead affected only the relative costs of purchasing such benefits: "It is an influence that can affect a plan's shopping decisions, but it does not affect the fact that any plan will shop for the best deal it can get, surcharges or no surcharges." Id. at 660, 115 S. Ct. 1671. By contrast, Plaintiffs in this case do not argue that H.B. 335 imposes undue costs on ERISA plans, but rather that the state law restricts the ability of ERISA plans to provide maintenance prescription benefits by contracting with HMOs that exclusively use mail order pharmacies for this purpose. It therefore appears that Supreme Court precedent will not provide a clear answer to whether H.B. 335 is preempted by ERISA.[9]
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