U.S. HOUSE Small-business health plan OK'd

Small businesses look for the same health-care advantage as large ones.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A plan aimed at providing employer-based health coverage to millions of workers at small businesses won approval Thursday in the House.
The measure, which passed on a 262-162 vote, would allow small businesses to pool together through national trade associations to buy insurance from a provider or self-insure, as many large employers do.
Similar proposals have cleared the House, but a fight is coming in the Senate. The White House-backed bill would waive states' minimum coverage standards by giving oversight of group health insurance plans to the federal government.
President Bush, during a speech about the economy in Minnesota, urged the Senate to act, "for the sake of affordable health care for the employees of small businesses all across this country."
Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, compared the bill to buying soda: Each can is cheaper in a case from the grocery store than individually from a vending machine.
Johnson, a sponsor of the bill, said the national plans "would allow groups like the National Restaurant Association to buy thousands of health insurance policies at a lower per-policy cost, and pass the savings along."
Current situation
Small-business group plans currently exist, sponsored by groups such as chambers of commerce. But they are allowed only on a state-by-state basis and must follow state regulations for what plans must cover.
Rep. Nydia Velazquez, senior Democrat on the House Small Business Committee, said small businesses deserve the same advantages as large corporations and unions, which are exempt from state health coverage mandates.
"If it is good enough for IBM, Lockheed Martin and GM, it should be good enough for Main Street American businesses," said Velazquez, of New York.
Small businesses and their biggest industry group, the National Federation of Independent Business, are pushing for the bill's passage. About 60 percent of the nation's 41 million uninsured work for small businesses or depend on someone who does, supporters said.
Opponents' argument
Opponents say that without strict state safeguards, the plans could "cherry-pick" younger, healthier workers, saddling the rest with even higher costs than before.
State requirements can include coverage of mammograms, mental health and obstetrician care, mandatory appeals when claims are denied and limits on how much older or sicker groups can be charged.
Rep. Rob Andrews, D-N.J., and other opponents pushed an alternative proposal that would provide subsidies to small businesses, through a Department of Labor program, for coverage patterned after federal employee health insurance. That amendment failed.
Andrews pointed out that most governors, state attorneys general and state insurance commissioners oppose national health insurance plans, as does Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, a major provider of coverage for small businesses.