The Self-Insurance Institute of America (SIIA) has opposed a recent state bill, as it would stifle self-insured health plans.
According to the SIIA, the bill would threaten the employer-sponsored health benefit plans of thousands of California employees and their dependents, particularly among small- to medium-sized businesses.
The proposed bill, SB 161, would restrict employers’ use of stop-loss insurance to protect against catastrophic losses and also includes special restrictions on self-insured employers for groups of 50 or less.
SIIA chief operating officer, Michael Ferguson, explained the institute’s reasons for opposing the bill in a recent letter to Health Care Committee chairman, Senator Ed Hernandez.
Ferguson said: “Given that smaller employers in particular face significant financial challenges in providing quality health benefits for their employees and their dependents, it is more important than ever that they have as many coverage options as possible including self-insured group health plans.”
“By restricting the availability of medical stop-loss insurance through minimum attachment point requirements, SB 161 compromises the viability of the self-insured option … why would you want to make it more difficult and expensive for California employers to provide quality health benefits on a voluntary basis?”
Ferguson concluded that if the SB 161 bill is passed, businesses would have no recourse but to buy more expensive traditional healthcare plans on the open market or give up their plans and leave their employees to enter a new state healthcare insurance exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act.
“Ultimately, taking people from employers’ self-insured plans to the state exchanges would have the economic crippling effect of putting millions more people on publicly-assisted health care.”
