Small firms want health coverage

Legalizing association health plans would extend coverage to millions

POLITICIANS like to furrow their brows and shake their heads in concern over the number of people - 47 million - who are uninsured in America. Candidates talk a good line.

But the truth is, as usual, complicated.

According to a Heritage Foundation report from 2007, at least 7 million of the uninsured are illegal immigrants. About 9 million are on Medicaid. Another 3.5 million are already eligible for government health programs.

Many of the uninsured are in and out of health coverage.

But many millions more don't have health insurance because state officials are preventing it.

More than 80 percent of the uninsured come from working families.

The National Federation of Independent Business says 27 million of the uninsured are owners, workers or dependents of workers for small businesses. The size of the firm correlates directly with the ability to offer health insurance.

The Health Research Educational Trust found in a survey that 99 percent of firms with more than 200 employees are able to offer health insurance. Only 55 percent of companies with three to nine employees are able to offer such coverage.

Cost is the problem. The smallest firms, the federation said, pay an average of 18 percent more in premiums than larger firms - for the same benefits.

The small business federation has long spearheaded an effort to allow small business owners to band together across state lines through national trade associations to offer health plans. Forming larger risk pools would lower premiums.

But regulators in some of the 50 states would rather control the terms of coverage - requiring that companies offer specific kinds of coverage - than cooperate and allow more people to have coverage of any kind.

Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., has long been on the side of the angels on this issue, voting many times to allow association health plans. The House of Representatives has passed such a measure on numerous occasions.

It's the honest thing to do.

It's estimated that getting the measure passed into law could cut premiums by 13 to 25 percent per employee - and cover an estimated 8.5 million working Americans.

http://www.dailymail.com/Opinion/Editorials/200809220141