Bill to help small businesses pay insurance introduced

US Congressman Jason Altmire of the North Hills is one of ten sponsors of legislation being introduced Tuesday aimed at helping small business that want to provide health insurance to their workers. The measure would charge the National Association of Insurance Commissioners with putting together a list of plans that business owners can buy into at rates lower then they would be able to negotiate on their own. The business would not see rates increase if one worker had a serious illness. Altmire says often small business are dropped by insurance companies or see their rates skyrocket when none employee gets a serious illness. That practice is known as redlining. The bill will also give tax credits to small businesses that pay at least 60-percent of their employee’s insurance premiums. The tax credit would be capped at 18-hundred dollars for an individual employee’s insurance policy and twice that for family coverage.