Help for small-business workers eyed

Kirsten Searer

Friday, April 16, 2004 | 10:50 a.m.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced today he will introduce a bill to help insure small-business employees, whose employers often can't afford to provide health coverage.

The Healthy Employees, Healthy Small Business Act of 2004 would give businesses with 50 or fewer employees a tax credit if they paid 75 percent of the total cost of their employees' health insurance premiums.

Reid pointed out that 44 million Americans have no health insurance, even though 85 percent of those families have a member who is employed.

His bill would give the greatest tax relief to the smallest businesses.

Companies with 10 or fewer employees could claim a credit of 50 percent of each employee's health policy up to $1,500 for an individual or $3,400 for a family.

Companies with 25 to 50 employees could claim a credit of 35 percent of the cost of each policy up to $750 for an individual or $1,700 for a family. An employer could claim any employee who works at least 400 hours per year and earns at least $5,000 over that period.

Reid made the announcement today in Henderson with Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and Michael Graham of the Nevada Small Business Development Center. Reid said he would introduce it next week.

Buckley announced her own statewide initiative in February that would pool small businesses together as a group to buy health insurance and use untapped federal funds to supplement the system.

That proposal is now being reviewed by a special legislative subcommittee.

Buckley said today that Reid's plan will complement her proposal and make health insurance more affordable to small businesses.

Reid said this morning that that health costs have increased at double the rate of inflation, making it especially difficult for small businesses, which often survive on thin margins, to afford insurance for their employees.

Nevada has a dismal health insurance rate, with an estimated 18 percent of nonelderly residents -- 341,200 people -- going without health insurance.

The problem is not just among the unemployed. About 82 percent of uninsured families in the state have at least one family member who works full- or part-time but whose employer doesn't provide insurance, according to figures released by Buckley in February.

That could be because about 94 percent of the state's worksites employ fewer than 50 people. Just 43 percent of those small companies offer health insurance.

But about 97 percent of companies with 50 or more employees offer insurance, Buckley said in February.