Advocates for Washington state employers say theres little hope the Legislature will act this session on proposals to ease the growing cost and complexity of providing employee benefits. Instead, they say, theyll be mostly playing defense as legislators mold the new Family Leave Act further and consider bills that could lead to major changes in the states health-insurance landscape.


Topics under debate during the short legislative session also include the establishment of a group that would study different types of health-care reform models and adjustments to workers compensation premiums for business that have employees working out of state. Most issues, though, likely will be discussed more extensively by lawmakers in the 2009 session, both because legislators who are up for re-election this year are wary of giving their adversaries ammunition by passing controversial laws this session, and because 2008s session is a non-budget-writing session. This years regular session is scheduled to end March 13.


Were pretty much on defense this session, says Kris Tefft, general counsel for the Olympia-based Association of Washington Business. Its a short session, so some bills will die because theres not enough time to process the sheer volume of bills that have been introduced.


The No. 1 priority for business groups this session involves the Family Leave Act of 2007. Starting in October 2009, the bill mandates five weeks of paid family leave for workers who adopt or have a child, Tefft says. Legislators are considering bills this session that focus on the programs implementation, but likely still wont decide how it will be funded, he says. The law applies to companies of any size.


Decisions about funding are critical, given that the projected cost to set up and operate the program for the first two years will total an estimated $113 million, Tefft says. Currently, the two funding options that have been proposed are to draw from the states general fund or to charge a payroll tax on workers, he says.


The issue that seems to be off the table this session is how in the world theyre going to be able to pay for this thing, Tefft says. Were still left scratching our heads, and we want to get it nailed down because the longer the issue is unresolved the more attractive taxing businesses might be.


The AWB also wants the Legislature to allow employers who already provide paid family leave to opt out of the program, says Don Brunell, the groups president. Proponents of the law, though, are reluctant to allow employers to opt out, because they say too much potential revenue will be lost if that happens, he says.


We didnt support the bill from the beginning, so ideally for us they would repeal it, Brunell says. That wont happen, though, so were trying to get the opt out provision.


Bills related to health-care benefits also are among the hot topics this session. In the 2007 session, lawmakers considered a bill that contained an amendment to allow businesses to choose a stripped-down, core-benefits health plan, also referred to as a mandate-light plan because the amendment would have shed some of the coverages the state mandates in insurance plans, says Carl Gipson, director for small business at the Seattle-based Washington Policy Center. While the Legislature passed the bill, it stripped that amendment from it, he says.


Although lawmakers arent considering any mandate-light bills this year, the topic is a high priority for business groups and is expected to resurface in the 2009 session, Gipson says.


Meanwhile, a bill thats being considered in the House would establish a Citizens Work Group for Health Care Reform that would study five types of health-care reform models, says Troy Nichols, Washington state director of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. One of those models involves a health-plan light concept, Nichols says. While NFIB supports studying health-care reform options, legislators are considering putting the states insurance commissioner in charge of the study, Nichols says. The NFIB isnt in favor of that idea, partly because Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler is up for re-election, and public money would be spent to send him around the state to conduct public meetings about the models, one of which is his own.


Theres a definite merit to studying these plans, Nichols says. Our big problem is with who they put in charge of the effort.


Premera Blue Cross, which has about 1.3 million members in Washington, including 247,000 in Eastern Washington, also is watching that bill closely, says Jack McRae, a senior vice president for legislative and congressional affairs at the Mountlake Terrace, Wash.-based insurer. While Premera supports studying proposals, it would rather a more neutral party than Kreidler supervise the study, McRae says.


Since he created one of the proposals, we feel there could be a bias in the work group if he oversees it, McRae asserts.


Other health-insurance-related proposals this session that Premera opposes include bills that would provide universal or catastrophic coverage and a law that would allow Kreidler to regulate premium rates in the individual health-insurance market, McRae says. Premera expects the latter bill will pass this year. It doesnt expect that the catastrophic and universal coverage bills will pass, but does anticipate that they will be considered more seriously next year.


Its a situation building for 2009, McRae says. It will be part of what will be one of the largest years for health care since Ive been involved in it.


Another bill that Premera is watching closely this session involves the Washington state Health Insurance Partnership, which was created by the Legislature last year to offer a state-run health insurance brokerage through which some small businesses will be able to buy group health insurance. The House bill that likely will pass this year would modify the partnership and address eligibility and enrollment issues, among others.


We believe strongly that we have to do something about the uninsured, but were not convinced this is the solution, McRae asserts.


Association health plans


One health-benefit proposal that already has died this year but likely will resurface in 2009 would require association health plans, which groups such as the AWB offer to small businesses, to turn over information about the methods they use to provide ratings for their health plans so the state could study those plans and their impact on the health-care system in Washington, NFIBs Nichols says. The proposal also would have given more regulatory control of the plans to the insurance commissioner, he says.


We think in the long run that would lead to an effort that would make the association health plans not competitive, the AWBs Brunell says. We want to make sure that the programs that are working, like association health plans, are allowed to continue and then find ways to cover the uninsured.


Sen. Chris Marr, D-Spokane, who sponsored the Senates version of the bill, says he supports association health plans, and sponsored the bill because it would have provided a third-party analysis of those plans. Studying association plans, he contends, would be a way to show that they work and make them less likely to be folded into a state pool as part of a larger health-care reform effort.


There was distrust among health plans that this feeds into a broader plan to eliminate them, and the approach was to kill any type of analysis, Marr says. I was hoping to pre-empt the attempts by some to do away with association health plans by proposing something before the next session, when our momentum could be taken away.


He adds, I think were going to be fighting off attempts to come in and regulate a market where it hasnt been shown that regulation reduces costs or improves quality.


Marr also sponsored one of the most prominent bills this session related to workers compensation benefits. The bill would allow Washington employers who arent self-insured and have employees working out of state for more than 30 consecutive days in a year to pay only the other states workers comp premiums and not Washingtons. Currently, employers must pay premiums both to the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries and the state in which its employees are working, if Washington state doesnt have a reciprocity agreement with the other state.


Tefft says the AWB supports the bill, which he contends will save businesses money and help them compete for out-of-state jobs because they wont have to factor in duplicative workers comp expenses into their job bids.


Another big employee benefits issue being debated this session involves a Washington state Supreme Court case last year, Stevens v. Brinks Home Security, the Washington Policy Centers Gipson says. The implications of the Supreme Courts decision in that case are that employers must pay employees for their time spent commuting when driving a company vehicle to and from work. Bills being considered by the House and the Senate wouldnt overrule the courts decision, but would define what is and isnt compensable, Gipson says.


This is causing a lot of concern in the business community, because it could dramatically increase costs, Gipson says.


Another bill being watched closely by business groups this year would require businesses to provide a reasonable leave of absence for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking, both Tefft and Nichols say. They both say their groups arent opposed to the concept of allowing employees time off in such situations, but the bill doesnt adequately define terms such as a reasonable amount of leave, and would open new avenues for workers to sue their employers. Also, most businesses already would provide leave time to employees under such circumstances, they contend.


Contact Emily Proffitt at (509) 344-1265 or via e-mail at emilyp@spokanejournal.com.