U.S. Rep. Harris Fawell says a bill he will introduce in the next session of Congress could help reduce the number of Americans who have no health insurance.The bill to be sponsored by the 13th District Republican would allow professional associations to form regional or national health insurance risk pools, something they are currently prevented from doing because of legislation and having to meet the mandates of all 50 states.
Federal approval would allow the groups, such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses, to offer its members a health insurance policy that spreads the risk among all its members.
This is similar to what large companies and municipalities do with self-insurance plans.
Large employers which fit the qualifying criteria are federally exempted from having to meet individual state insurance requirements.
Fawell wants to extend that privilege to small employers with his bill.
Most job growth nationally is in small business enterprises, as it is locally in DuPage County.
Fawell said his bill will tackle the problem of uninsured Americans better than the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill, which allows employees who already have health insurance to carry that coverage to a new job.
The bill also limits the pre-existing medical condition exclusion.
Fawell said the revolution in health care insurance in the past 20 years has been a shift to employer-provided programs.
'Hence, those employees of small employers have to hope one spouse is working for a large employer,' the he said.
He used a report, titled Characteristics of the Uninsured, from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a Washington D.C.-based group charged with contributing to public policy development pertaining to employee benefits, to buttress his bill.
Fawell embraced what he called the report's contradiction of four myths:
• 'Most uninsured people are unemployed' -- The report said 85 percent of the uninsured live in a family headed by a worker and the majority of these employed heads of households are full-time, year-round workers.
An estimated 41 million Americans currently have no health insurance.
Fawell said the 'single most important reason Americans lack health insurance is that they work, or they are in the family of a worker, for a small business that does not have access to affordable insurance.'
• 'Small employers not offering insurance just don't want to pay for it' -- The study confirmed small businesses' have higher per capita costs due to greater risk and higher average administrative costs, Fawell said.
• 'The Kassebaum-Kennedy bill will cover the uninsured' -- Fawell argued that the Kassebaum-Kennedy bill has no requirement that an employer offer health insurance to its employees.
Nor does it expand the 18-month period that some former employees have under COBRA, a plan that lets people leaving a position continue on their former company's health insurance so long as they pay the full premium.
The study, Fawell contends, points out the legislation will do little to decrease the size of the uninsured population.
'This provision,' Fawell quoted from the report, 'is expected to increase health insurance premiums and may contribute to the declining rate of employment-based health insurance.'
• 'The only way to get coverage to the uninsured (who work in small business) is through the government' -- Fawell asserted small businesses want to solve their own problem, without the government unduly stepping in.
Fawell said that if small business associations would be allowed to form nationwide health insurance risk pools, they could provide affordable health insurance coverage to a majority of the population currently lacking coverage.
Fawell acknowledged his bill faces opposition from the insurance industry since, if it is approved, it would allow those people currently paying for individual coverage to become policyholders of an association's health insurance plan.
From his own experience, Fawell knows the tribulation of having a small business.
As a lawyer, Fawell said he would purchase an expensive individual health insurance policy during the periods when his wife, Ruth, a teacher, was not working.
'That's why we have a high number of uninsured people,' Fawell said. 'People simply don't have the wherewithal to buy insurance from their employer.'
His bill would provide to smaller groups the economies of scale currently afforded large employers, he said.
'What we're offering is to let the little guys do what the big guys have the chance to do,' Fawell explained.
'It will extend the private health care revolution to small employers.'
