Lynch touts cheaper health insurance
15 02 08 - 11:49
Gov. seeks to help small businesses
By Shir Haberman
shaberman@seacoastonline.com
February 15, 2008 6:00 AM
PORTSMOUTH - Gov. John Lynch visited Pease Tradeport Thursday, plugging his plan to give small businesses some relief from the mounting costs of supplying health care benefits to their employees.
His HealthFirst initiative met a receptive audience at Infinite Imaging, a copying company located at 30 International Drive and owned by Bill Hurley.
"Health care has become a runaway expense for us," Hurley said. "I am pleased the governor has proposed this initiative."
Hurley said he pays about $50,000 a year to cover 50 percent of the health care benefit costs for his 25 employees. He said he has been trying to continue to pay that share of the cost, but escalating premiums are rapidly eroding his company's bottom line.
Lynch said Hurley's situation is not unusual among small businesses across the state. His initiative would require insurers operating in New Hampshire and serving more than 1,000 policy holders to offer a lower cost health care product to small businesses.
This new product would allow small businesses to continue - or begin - to supply health care benefits to their workers at cost that would not negatively affect their profit margins. The governor envisions the cost of this product as being 10 percent of the statewide median wage. That wage is currently approximately $31,000 a year, he said.
"It's the right thing to do for workers, and it's good for economic development," said Lynch. "It won't prevent businesses from investing in their companies just because they want to supply health care benefits to their workers."
State Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny, who joined Lynch for the Pease visit, said the details of what this new health care product cover will be developed by sitting down with businesses, workers and insurers.
"For the first time, employers will have a say," Sevigny said.
However, he made it clear that workers will have to get involved in maintaining their own health if this process is to work.
"The plan calls for work by those who are involved in it," the commissioner said. "They will have to follow the protocols set up for the chronic diseases they have."
For example, patients with diabetes will have to do what is needed to help control their disease, Sevigny said.
HealthFirst is modeled on a similar program instituted by the state of Rhode Island. Lynch said that, while it is a new program, the small businesses in that state that have decided to take advantage of it have experienced health care benefit savings of 15-20 percent.
The program still has to pass legislative muster, but Lynch is confident it will.
"There is strong legislative support for this plan," he said.
As for the insurers, while the Rhode Island program is still too new to judge its impact on the number of carriers choosing to operate in the state, Lynch said he was hopeful the New Hampshire version would meet insurers' financial criteria.
"Insurance carriers are looking at this proposal," the governor said. "There certainly will be a demand for (the new product), and insurers will respond to that."