Sacramento County Supervisors to Vote on Program to Subsidize Private Health Insurance for Small Businesses

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors today plans to vote on a two-year pilot program that would use funds from the county's share of the national tobacco settlement to subsidize part of the cost of private health insurance for low-income small business employees, the Sacramento Bee reports. The program, called SacAdvantage, would target low-income individuals employed at businesses in the county that have between two and 50 employees and have not offered employer-sponsored health coverage for at least one year to purchase private health insurance. Under the program, small business employees who have annual incomes less than 300% of the federal poverty level -- about $53,000 for a family of four -- and do not qualify for other public or private health coverage could receive a subsidy based on their incomes. The program, which would cost about $1 million, would limit enrollment to 500 small business employees and their dependents, but county officials predicted that many individuals who apply for SacAdvantage would qualify for Medi-Cal or Healthy Families. About 206,316 county residents do not have health insurance, and about half may qualify for public health programs, the Bee reports. County officials hope to launch SacAdvantage, if approved, this summer (Davila, Sacramento Bee, 5/6).