Health care breakthrough
Small businesses struggling with the high cost of health insurance for their employees have received a needed boost from the Legislature with passage of a bill allowing them to form cooperatives for coverage to reduce their costs.
The bill would allow businesses of 50 or fewer employees to contract for health care insurance as a single entity to reduce expenses and administrative costs. The bipartisan measure, whose sponsors included Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell and Senate Democratic Minority Leader John Land, passed the Senate last year, and was approved by the House this week.
Gov. Mark Sanford praised the plan as a way to improve prospects for small business development in the state, as well as giving the employees of small businesses a benefit comparable to those who work for large corporations.
"Giving the 97 percent of businesses in this state that are small businesses another tool to remain competitive in today's world is key to the notion of creating better soil conditions for companies to grow and compete," the governor said. "While there's no silver bullet when it comes to health care, this step could go a long way toward making insurance more affordable for a whole host of workers in this state — over half of who are employed by small businesses."
The governor earlier listed passage of the Small Business Health Care bill as one of his top priorities of the legislative session. The House's quick passage is an encouraging sign that the executive and legislative branches are on the same page — or at least more so than in previous years.
That possibility was re-emphasized with the House passage Wednesday of an illegal immigration bill.
Let's hope that the governor and the Legislature can find agreement on some other priority issues, including government restructuring and streamlining, sound fiscal management and school choice, to name a few.
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