Worker health plans fail checkup

MIKE DRUMMOND
Staff Writer Charlotte Observer

 

N.C. businesses nearly lead the nation when it comes to killing employee health plans.

 

Only Missouri had a bigger decline in employer-provided health care from 2000 to 2004, according to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank partly funded by unions.

 

The findings prompted North Carolina's largest small-business trade group to renew calls for state health insurance incentives. The N.C. arm of the National Federation of Independent Business also echoed support for a bill in the U.S. Senate that would allow small employers to buy insurance collectively through so-called association health plans.

 

The clarions come amid national angst over escalating health insurance costs, which have risen an average of 15 percent a year since 2002. EPI and others cite soaring costs as a key reason for employers dropping health plans.

 

The NFIB and the institute rarely find common ground. They're at polar opposites when it comes to raising the minimum wage, for instance.

 

However, the EPI study "confirmed what we know," said NFIB spokesman Jim Brown. "It doesn't matter who the source is."

 

The NFIB supported a General Assembly bill this year that would have extended a $400 tax credit per employee to small employers with 25 or fewer workers. Eligible companies would have to pay at least 50 percent of their employees' health insurance.

 

The group pulled support when a provision to boost the state's minimum wage by 85 cents to $6 an hour was tacked on. It hopes a stand-alone tax credit bill is reintroduced next year.

 

Meanwhile, the group hopes the Senate green-lights the Small-Business Health Fairness Act, which would let small businesses pool resources to buy insurance. The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., is in committee.

 

More than 1,300 organizations, including the American Nurses Association, the NAACP and insurers such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, oppose association health plans.

 

A Blue Cross spokesman said the federal bill would strip state oversight of insurance coverage. Under the proposed law, employers could deny coverage to some now protected under existing statute, and make the appeals process more onerous.

 

Jim Bitzan owns a Vespa franchise in Charlotte. He hires about a half-dozen workers, all part time.

 

The state and federal small-business health initiatives whet his appetite.

 

"If I were able to offer health insurance, I think I could hire full-time employees," he said. "I could take some time off -- I haven't had a day off in 3 1/2 years."

 

 

 

 

 

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