Proposal would insure small-business workers

Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

A new plan to be introduced today by state legislators would provide affordable health insurance to small-business employees without burdening state coffers, the plan's proponents said.

The idea is to pool Nevada's small businesses into a large insurance group, said Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, who is spearheading the idea.

Then the state would tap into about $90 million in unused federal funds to lower insurance premiums for businesses and their employees, Buckley said.

"I think if health insurance were more affordable, businesses would want to offer insurance to their employees," Buckley said.

An estimated 18 percent of Nevada's non-elderly residents go without health insurance, Buckley said. That's some 341,200 people.

She said the problem is that many of those uninsured families -- about 82 percent -- include at least one family member who works full- or part-time but whose employer can't afford to provide insurance.

And most of Nevada's work sites -- about 94 percent -- employ fewer than 50 people. Only 43 percent of businesses with fewer than 50 employees offer health insurance, Buckley said. She said 97 percent of businesses with more than 50 employees offer benefits.

A new legislative subcommittee will examine the proposal and discuss other ideas to expand health insurance in Nevada. The first meeting of the committee will be held Friday morning at the Sawyer State Office Building in Las Vegas.

Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid, who will serve as an honorary member of the subcommittee to represent the interests of county and local governments, said a majority of small businesses are unable to afford offering insurance to their employees.

"People have, I think, the misconception that indigents and the uninsured are the same, and it's just not the case," Reid said. "There are a lot of people who work as hard as they can. They aren't covered by the programs that are designed to cover the indigents, but they can't provide insurance to their families."

Other subcommittee members have expressed support for the idea.

"My understanding is there are members of the committee on both sides of the aisle that are supporting this money," said Sen. Dennis Nolan, R-Las Vegas.

Some small employers, such as Kirk Offerle, who owns the Jazzed Cafe and Vinoteca at 8615 W. Sahara, want to provide insurance but can't afford it. Offerle has previously looked into offering his six employees health insurance but found the costs would be too high for himself -- and for the employees.

"Most of them go without insurance, unfortunately," Offerle said. "When they do have something that happens, they go in and they obviously have to pay for it directly. They go to the emergency room.

"... If there is a good plan in place that had a premium that is affordable, I think we would definitely get involved in that."

Other states such as Iowa, Idaho and Louisiana recently have enacted programs similar to the one being proposed in Nevada, Buckley said.

The Bush administration has allowed states to fund insurance for small-business workers using the new Health Insurance Flexibility and Accountability Initiative, said Charles Duarte, Nevada's Medicaid administrator.

The initiative allows states to tap into money allocated for the State Childrens Health Insurance Program, or S-CHIP.

The money normally is allocated for uninsured children, but typically the federal government gives states more money than they can give out to children, Duarte said.

Some of the federal matching funds would come from county programs, but Clark County manager Thom Reilly said the county will work to ensure that county social services and the University Medical Center can continue to operate without interruption.

"Anything that chips away at the large number of uninsured not only serves especially UMC well but serves our county well," Reilly said. "That's a concept that everybody's supportive of."

Not everyone is happy with the idea of using federal money to fix the problem.

Today Assembly candidate Ed Gobel, a Republican who is running for District 1, said he will request legislation to create a program that simply would combine small businesses in a large pool without using federal money to supplement insurance premiums.

The plan also would eliminate some mandated coverages that aren't necessary, Gobel said.

Nevada doesn't need federal money to run an efficient small-business health insurance pool, Gobel said.

"That all comes out of our pockets anyhow," he said.

Others want to ensure that the new federal money won't come with new requirements, Nolan said.

"I think that we just have to be cautious that we don't pick up any strings that sometimes come along with federal funds," he said.

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has not yet seen the proposal but does support efforts to provide health insurance to small-business employees, said Christina Dugan, director of government affairs.

"We've found that the vast majority of small businessmen want to provide health care to their employees," Dugan said. "It's just an issue of how they can make the costs."