WASHINGTON — Greg Newman of Hallowell told a
Senate committee Wednesday about the importance
- and difficulty - of covering the rising cost
of health insurance for his 50 workers at Newman
Concrete Services. "I can't afford to ask my
employees to pay more and I can't afford to pay
more," he told the Senate Small Business
Committee. "In the near future, it's going to
become simply impossible."
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, the committee
chairman, invited his testimony as part of a
hearing about association health plans. Her goal
is to allow small businesses to band together
across state lines to negotiate lower prices for
health insurance.
"If we want to get serious about helping the
uninsured, which I think is long overdue, we
should start by focusing on small business,"
Snowe said. "This is not a radical new policy
we're talking about here."
Concerns about the proposal have prevented
Congress from approving legislation that the
House has approved seven times. Concerns focus
on who will prevent disreputable insurers from
cheating their customers and who will prevent
insurers from serving only the healthiest
workers.
"I have to say it, but I think this is a lot
of wishful thinking," said Sen. John Kerry,
D-Mass.
The problem that prompted the legislation is
the country's 45 million uninsured people,
nearly two-thirds of whom work for small
businesses or depend on someone who does.
Health-care premiums rose 59 percent since
2000, while wages rose only 12.4 percent during
the same period, officials said. Small
businesses often find it too costly to get
health insurance for their workers because they
can't negotiate savings the way larger
corporations and unions can.
Newman said that when he started offering
workers health insurance in 2000, it cost about
$21 a week for each worker who took the
insurance. It now costs $100 per week.
"For a small business like mine, that is a
pretty hefty bill to pay, and I am not sure how
much longer I can last without getting some sort
of relief from these prices," he said.
Snowe's legislation would create federal
regulation for small-business health plans that
wouldn't be subject to state regulation.
To be eligible, business groups would have to
have been established for three years for
reasons other than providing health insurance.