Health care consortium targets local manufacturers

The Missouri Department of Insurance approved the Southwest Area Manufacturers Association for the SAMA I Health Care Consortium, allowing member businesses to be viewed as one employer group with a uniform insurance plan.

Mercy Health Plans won the competitive bidding process to provide health insurance coverage to SAMA’s 32 member organizations, representing about 1,300 employees.

Both large and small manufacturing companies, with as few as three employees, can join, though to qualify they must be SAMA members for at least six months.

The consortium allows six companies in SAMA to offer health insurance to employees that weren’t able to offer it previously.

An informational meeting for SAMA members was held Nov. 14 in St. John’s Hammons Heart Institute Multipurpose Room.

Associations like SAMA have received health coverage through Mercy Health Plans in the public sector since 1997, but SAMA is Mercy’s first association in the private sector.

The Small Employer Health Insurance Availability Act ordinarily prevents small employers from being included in insurance consortiums, but the Department of Insurance’s waiver suspends the restriction for two years. The department will evaluate the effectiveness of the arrangement at the end of that time and choose whether to approve it again.

SAMA membership is open to all manufacturers in southwest Missouri.

Congressman Roy Blunt noted in a SAMA news release that the new consortium could have national significance.

“The consortium of the Southwest Area Manufacturers Association will be closely watched as a national model to show how association health plans can provide cost savings and access to health care coverage not only in Missouri, but across the country. I am hopeful that their efforts will be successful.”

This story originally appeared in SBJ’s Nov. 11 e-news Daily Update. Click here to register.