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Trade group membership can cut healthcare costs

Healthcare costs are often a top concern for entrepreneurs, but some are finding relief when they join chambers of commerce and trade groups.

Membership now comes with healthcare benefits, as James McDermott, 36, of Worcester, found. That’s why the self-employed contractor decided to join the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce this month as his family’s Blue Cross-Blue Shield coverage, under a COBRA plan, was due to end.

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2004/10/31/trade_group_membership_can_cut_healthcare_costs/

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The Montana Chamber of Commerce

http://www.montanachamber.net

Montana Chamber of Commerce Announces New Health Benefit Plan for Members

The Montana Chamber of Commerce launches a statewide health benefit program for members with health coverage beginning May 1, 2004.

“We are pleased to announce the availability of Montana Chamber Choices. Chamber Choices has been a long-term goal of ours to provide our members with an affordable insurance plan,” said Montana Chamber president, Webb Brown.

Montana Chamber Choices (MCC) will be available to small employers with 2 to 50 employees who are members of the Montana State Chamber of Commerce and/or participating local chambers who are members of the Montana Chamber of Commerce. The plan is sponsored and endorsed by the Montana Chamber of Commerce and participating local Chambers statewide.

“Our members want to provide good employee benefits, including health insurance. The more we can do to cover Montana employees, the greater our ability to improve individual health,” continued Brown. “We can also help to alleviate cost shift and make health care more affordable for everyone. When we have affordable health care in Montana, we can have affordable health insurance.”

For more info: http://www.montanachamber.net/ws/aboutus3.php?page_id=5112&PHPSESSID=4aa8f676abd99b9908d718e1a8f1c853

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McDermott had been laid off in March 2003 as a real estate appraiser for the City of Worcester assessor’s office and was paying $1,294 a month. Effective tomorrow, he will be paying $766 monthly, now that he is a chamber member. The Blue Cross-Blue Shield plan will cover him, his wife, Heather, 33, and their three children, ages 6, 5, and 14 months.

”I was floored by the price difference," he said.

More than eight out of 10 small-business owners say healthcare costs are hurting the business climate, according to a Wells Fargo/Gallup telephone survey of 600 small-business owners released last week. That would explain why many people who are trying to make a go of a small enterprise are finding that signing up with a chamber or trade association gives them a lifeline, said Stephanie Stillman, executive director of the Concord Chamber of Commerce.

”It’s often a matter of having insurance or not having insurance," she said, referring to the prohibitive costs of nongroup health plans. Thirty percent of the Concord chamber’s 325 members are enrolled in one of the chamber’s nine health insurance programs, Stillman said.

Indeed, there has been ”a steady growth" the last few years in the number of chambers and trade groups offering health insurance and the number of people enrolling in their plans, said Shannon Linde, executive vice president of Health Service Administrators in Braintree.

Although specific growth figures are unavailable, her firm, Linde said, currently oversees health insurance plans for 134 chambers and 8,000 small-business groups in Massachusetts. These clients collectively have about 20,500 subscribers who are either sole proprietors or owners of firms having fewer than 10 workers.

For business groups, extending healthcare benefits is a way to grow membership and services. ”Once they join our chamber, most businesses then take advantage of the many services we offer," said Richard B. Kennedy, interim chief executive of the Worcester Regional Chamber.

Of the chamber’s 2,200 members in Worcester, 650 are enrolled with Blue Cross-Blue Shield, Fallon Community Health, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Tufts Health Plan, or Aetna.

Mitchell Yelin, 51, a software consultant who has been a Concord chamber member since the spring of 2003, said the chamber insurance saved him $400 a month, allowing him to sock a little more away for retirement. ”I couldn’t be happier or more relieved."
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

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