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Wednesday, August 8, 2007
Health insurance for the little guys
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gov. Sonny Perdue Tuesday unveiled a proposal to spend $50 million in state and federal money to help small businesses provide health insurance coverage for their employees. The plan has to be approved next year by the General Assembly.
It has already drawn criticism from the chairman of the House Rules Committee, Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs), that it’s a new entitlement, so passage is not a slam-dunk. There’s plenty of time to examine the ramifications and the wisdom of taking on a new spending program that does have a powerful impetus to grow.
A Perdue proposes it, small businesses with 50 or fewer employees that don’t now offer health insurance could get taxpayer-subsidized coverage. Taxpayers would pay a third, the employers a third, and the employees a third. Provision would be made to keep employers and employees from dropping coverage. Employees would have to have been uninsured for six months before becoming eligible for the subsidized coverage. And they couldn’t participate if a spouse had an insurance option at his or her place of work or if they earned more than 300 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s about $30,600 for an individual and $62,000 for a family of four.
A number of questions and concerns arise. Tomorrow I’ll have a chance to sit down with some of the experts to get answers. Feel free to raise your concerns or offer your questions. This is a major new direction for the state — not nearly as sweeping as health care coverage proposals in states like Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Wisconsin is considering “free” health care for everybody. But the idea of giving public grants to some private companies and not others to help pay their operating costs, even if done indirectly, is a giant step for Georgia.
