• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Site Pools Health Information for Small Business Owners

Posted on: Saturday, 7 January 2006, 00:00 CST

By Portsia Smith, The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va.

Jan. 7--The search for affordable health coverage just got easier for small-business owners in Virginia.

The Virginia Department of Health has created an online tool and publication that can assist small businesses that may not have time or resources to find the best insurance plans.

The publication, "A Guide to Health Insurance Options for Small Businesses in Virginia," is aimed at making health coverage more accessible for small-business employees, who make up a substantial portion of Virginia's uninsured population.

The program is funded through a Virginia State Planning Grant. Publications were distributed through state and local Chamber of Commerce offices and Small Business Development Centers.

Brain J. Baker, executive director of the Rappahannock Region Small Business Development Center, said his office will make the publications available to business owners in the Fredericksburg region.

He also pointed out that this information doesn't make insurance available or more affordable--it only provides information as to what insurance options are out there.

"It's basically designed to elevate awareness and to give as much information as possible to business owners and employees so they know what health insurance can do for them and what it might cost," Baker said.

For small businesses, providing health insurance could be more beneficial than not, because it reduces staffing turnover and creates a healthier, more reliable work force, Baker said.

Four out of five, or 81 percent, of uninsured Americans are in working families--69 percent in households with at least one full-time worker and 13 percent with a part-time worker, according to a 2005 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The study says low-wage workers are at greater risk of being uninsured, as are those employed by small businesses and service industries and in blue-collar jobs.

"We know that many Virginia small business owners want to provide health insurance to their employees, but they don't have the time or resources to research what kind of plans are available and how much they cost," Rene Cabral--Daniels, director of the Virginia Department of Health's Office of Health Policy and Planning, said in a prepared statement. "Now, these employers will have data at their fingertips on not only cost and availability of specific plans, but also useful information on the advantages of providing health insurance to their workers."

That is good news for J.R. Flatter, president and CEO of Flatter & Associates, a Stafford County consulting firm that specializes in software solutions and homeland security.

Flatter says health coverage and benefits take a big chunk out of his small business's budget. But it's necessary to attract workers.

"When an employee is making the decision to join or to stay, they are calculating those factors," Flatter said. "It is a significant expense, but one that's well worth the burden."

In the Northwestern Region--which includes the Fredericksburg area--the guide says there are nine product types from insurers such as Anthem, UniCare and MAMSI. Each of the plans lists the monthly premium for a company employing two, eight and 15 people. It also gives business owners an idea of how much they will pay for each product as well as how much employees will have to pay out of pocket.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that at least 18,000 Americans die prematurely every year solely because they lack health insurance.

The handbook and Web site are modeled after a program initiated by the Healthcare Leadership Council, a coalition of the nation's leading health-care companies and institutions, and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Governor-elect Tim Kaine, as lieutenant governor created and headed a commission on small-business health-care costs, which recommended replicating the Healthcare Leadership Council's program across Virginia.

"Too many people aren't getting the preventive healthcare they need because they don't have access to health insurance," Kaine said in a written statement. "Providing small business owners with easy-to-access insurance resources is a step in the right direction for Virginia's economy and Virginia's families."

-----

To see more of The Free Lance-Star, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://fredericksburg.com/flshome.

Copyright (c) 2006, The Free Lance-Star, Fredericksburg, Va.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

Source: The Free Lance-Star

More News in this Category