THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 7, 1994 TAG: 9411070043
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines
Affordable health care coverage may be available by June to thousands of small-business employees and their families in eastern North Carolina, according to the director of a state program that helps small businesses obtain such coverage.
The State Plan Purchasing Alliance Board, which oversees the program, will meet today in Raleigh with two regional chamber of commerce groups seeking the go-ahead to develop plans to provide health care for eastern North Carolina.
The board is scheduled to select a plan in December and, under this timetable, eastern North Carolinians could obtain insurance through the program by next June, said Robert F. Joyce, executive director for the alliance.
The two groups presenting proposals will be the Eastern North Carolina Chamber of Commerce, which covers a 43-county area in the eastern third of the state, and the Chambers of Eastern North Carolina, a group comprising local chambers from eastern North Carolina.
Each group will propose a purchasing alliance that includes every county east of Interstate 95, making about 40,000 small businesses and more than 300,000 people eligible for insurance coverage.
The alliance board is scheduled to chose one of the proposals when it meets in December.
The alliance would offer a health insurance package to businesses with less than 50 employees, under the plan being developed now, Cherry said.
Nearly 67 percent of the 1 million people in North Carolina without health insurance are full-time workers and their families whose employers do not offer health care insurance, or offer insurance at prices too high to afford, or who cannot buy insurance under their employers' plans because of poor health, according to the Duke Center for Health Policy Research.
Many northeastern North Carolina counties have the highest percentage of people in the state who do not have health insurance. Camden County has the highest percentage of uninsureds, while Dare County, one of the fastest-growing counties in the state, has the fifth-highest percentage of people without insurance, according to the Duke center.
To help small employers throughout North Carolina, the General Assembly allocated $4.5 million last year to set up a system of purchasing alliances across the state. In May the Asheville-based Western North Carolina Health Alliance received a $50,000 grant from the state health alliance board and became the state's first health alliance.
Under the plan, small businesses come together to form an alliance which makes health insurance coverage available to the group at much lower rates than the businesses could obtain on their own. by CNB