Greater Lafayette Chamber Offers Health Plan for Members
Posted on: Tuesday, 25 October 2005, 21:01 CDT
By PATRICK COURREGES
LAFAYETTE - The Greater Lafayette Chamber of Commerce on Monday unveiled a members-only employee health insurance plan to give companies a lower-cost option for what's become a fast-growing business expense.
The Landry Harris & Co. insurance firm is handling the plan for the chamber, and representative Dave Matthews said it makes use of limits on dollars and treatment days to offer lower premium costs.
Employers are currently finding themselves forced to cut the levels of employee health benefits, but those benefits are an important tool in keeping employees, he said.
The chamber health plan is a two-part plan that employers who are members can offer to their workers, Matthews said.
If employers only take up one part of the plan, they can offer basic benefits such as life insurance for employees and dependents, hospital and intensive care coverage for a set number of days and coverage of up to $300 a year in doctor visits.
Taking both parts of the plan would mean employees can get a prescription drug benefit and access to discounts on medical care through a national preferred provider option network.
U.S. Rep. Charles Boustany Jr., R-Lafayette and a former heart surgeon, said at the lunch meeting held for the announcement that the chamber is doing something that the Congress has not been able to do - create a more affordable health plan for workers and employers.
"Congress ought to take a lesson," Boustany said.
He said that the plan in some ways mirrors a bill he worked to pass in the U.S. House earlier in the year to allow an encourage small businesses to pool together to get better health insurance rates for employees.
Boustany said that bill - which passed the House and has been awaiting action in the U.S. Senate for some time - would also cut costs for workers and employers looking to offer health coverage.
He said that the national response to the ever-increasing costs of health care and health insurance should not only create opportunities for market-based competition but should have three basic hallmarks - greater consumer access to information, moreHEALTH consumer choice and more consumer control.
Better information will give consumers the chance to make informed choices about their health-care spending and create competition, which will mean lower costs, Boustany said.
He said that can't happen now because health care is currently a price-controlled market with a huge chunk of the money passing through government programs.
Source: Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.
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