By Mike Shields
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Feb. 14
A bill to create a pilot program allowing 1,000 small-business workers into the state employee health plan was heard Wednesday by the House Insurance and Financial Institutions Committee.
House Bill 2172, a top agenda item for House Democrats this session, met opposition from a variety of insurance interests including the association that represents insurance agents and Coventry, one of the companies that provides coverage within the state employee plan. The plan currently covers 88,000 people.
Larry Magill, lobbyist for the Kansas Association of Insurance Agents, told lawmakers, “We are opposed to the basic concept of the state competing with private enterprise to provide health insurance to private businesses and non-state employees.”
Cheryl Dillard, a lobbyist for Coventry, asked committee members to wait until the bill had been studied more by the Kansas Health Policy Authority.
HB 2172 was supported by some small business owners and small-business advocate Kenneth Daniel of Topeka.
“This proposal deserves a chance,” Daniel said. “There is much to be learned from trying it, and the risks are minimal. It may be hard to get small businesses to join the plan or it may be easy. Either way, we are going to gain knowledge from the attempt. Marketing has been one of the biggest hurdles we have encountered in trying to get small businesses to take up insurance.”
The pilot program would allow 1,000 workers to join the state plan, paying the same premiums paid by state workers, but the workers and their employers would pay the costs. Supporters said the pilot would allow small companies that currently cannot afford insurance a shot at getting it.
But Magill said he feared the bill would invite a greater government hand in the insurance market.
“It”s a pilot leading to what?” he said.
The committee also heard testimony for and against HB 2328, a companion measure that would create a no-interest loan fund administered by the department of commerce to help formation of small business associations intent on assisting small businesses secure health insurance for their workers.
Rep. Nile Dillmore, D-Wichita, ranking minority member on the committee, also testified in support of both bills.
No action was taken on either bill.
Mike Shields is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
mshields@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 123.