|
Blue Cross to scrap policy with low employer contribution
Firm: Patrick feared harm to state's plan
By Jeffrey Krasner
Boston Globe
July 13, 2007...In an about-face, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts said it is scrapping a new policy that would have allowed owners of small businesses to contribute just one-third of the cost of their employees' health plan premiums.
Blue Cross said it made the change at the request of Governor Deval L. Patrick , who told the firm that such low premium contributions would hurt efforts to extend health insurance to all residents under the state's healthcare revamp law. Prior to the new policy, which took effect July 1, the insurer required a minimum 50 percent contribution to premiums from employers with 50 or fewer workers.
"The governor is responsible for the implementation of the healthcare reform law and he believed our underwriting guideline change would have an adverse impact on the implementation," said Chris Murphy , a spokesman for Blue Cross, the state's largest health insurer with about 3 million members.
The policy change had rekindled debate about how much a company must contribute to employee healthcare premiums to avoid paying an annual fee of $295 per employee that is part of healthcare reform. The Romney administration last year said a company would be considered to have made a "fair and reasonable" contribution to healthcare coverage and would not be subject to the fee if it paid one-third of a single employee's premium costs. The average contribution by Massachusetts employers is about 75 percent.
State Senator Richard T. Moore , the chairman of the Health Care Financing Committee, has asked the Patrick administration to revise the reform law standards, so that a 33 percent contribution would no longer be considered "fair and reasonable."
Read more at bostonglobe.com
|
