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The bill could be sent this week to Gov. Mitt Romney, who praised it as a "once in a generation" achievement yesterday. Romney said he did not know if he would try to change the bill if it reaches his desk, but said the assessment on employers did not trouble him as a previously proposed payroll tax did.

Lawmakers announced the compromise yesterday after emerging from five months of gridlocked negotiations that forced other legislative matters to the back burner.

"This is an historic piece," state Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, said at a press conference with his fellow health care negotiators, including Senate President Robert Travaglini and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi. "No other state in the country has advanced health care to this degree."

The bill aims to cover 90 to 95 percent of the state's approximately 500,000 uninsured residents over three years. It would be funded in part with $125 million per year for three years from the state's general fund, DiMasi said.

The House will vote today on the bill, which cannot be amended. The Senate then could take it up as early as today and send it to Romney.

Romney said the plan closely resembles a health care bill he filed last year, yet pointed to a handful of items he did not call for and would need to examine, including adding benefits to Medicaid and an employer assessment.

The bill calls for an annual $295-per-employee assessment on companies with 11 employees or more that do not provide health insurance.

Romney was generally favorable of the assessment in comments to reporters yesterday, and made a point to state: "It's not a tax hike. It's a fee, it's an assessment."

The bill also includes a so-called individual mandate requiring all Massachusetts residents to have health insurance by July 1, 2007.

The measure would allow insurers to sell a new type of no-frills insurance plan to individuals and businesses with pre-tax dollars . The state would subsidize or fully cover the insurance of the state's poorest residents.

Under the bill, anyone who can afford health coverage but does not have it after the first year would lose their right to claim a personal deduction on their income taxes. After a second year the uninsured would be fined up to half the cost of the most affordable health insurance available.

State Rep. Peter Koutoujian, D-Waltham, said the employer assessment and individual mandate work together. If people have to have insurance they will seek out employers who provide insurance, he said.

"By creating this system we're going to be driving more employers to offer insurance," Koutoujian said.

State Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, yesterday said he was concerned about how that assessment would affect companies and wanted to talk to the business community before voting.

"It's another fee or tax or whatever word you want tobusinesses and it makes them less competitive with our neighbors in other states," Brown said.

State Rep. Thomas Sannicandro, D-Ashland, said he believes the $295 per-employee assessment is reasonable.

"It's nowhere near the cost to insure a person," Sannicandro said.

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