Kisco Chamber Offers Health Insurance for Small Business

The Mount Kisco Chamber of Commerce has recently begun offering discounted health insurance plans to local small businesses and sole proprietors of businesses.

Members should have received information about the health-insurance plans in the mail within the last couple of weeks, the Chamber's Executive Director Janet Deane said.

The plans are administered by MVP Health Care, part of the Reis Benefits Group. The Chamber chose the plans based on competitive rates and the plan is accepted by the Mount Kisco Medical Group and Northern Westchester Hospital, Deane said.

Sole proprietor chamber members can choose between two insurance plans. Under the "low plan," a single person would pay $408.24 a month, and a family $1,093.48 a month. Under the "high plan," one person would pay $536.11 a month and a family $1,434.55 a month.

Under the MVP small group insurance plan, the "high" option costs $477.56 per person and $1,277.02 for a family. The "low" option costs $362.03 per person and $969.16 for a family.

"As a group, businesses can get better rates and group discounts," Deane said.

The Mount Kisco chamber's plan comes at a time when healthcare is a prominent, and heated, political issue.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce organization has lobbied aggressively against President Obama's healthcare reform plan because they believe it would place an undue financial burden on small business.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed their version of a health-care reform bill in early November, and the Senate passed their version of the bill on the morning of Christmas Eve. The House and Senate versions need to be reconciled and then the bill will go to the president's desk for approval.

Bruce Josten, executive vice president for Government Affairs at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said revisions to the Senate bill intended to address the concerns of business did not go far enough.

"Slightly increasing the threshold for minor small business tax credits is more than cancelled out by significantly increasing the payroll surtax and the addition of a new voucher system that will devastate those same small businesses," Josten said.

Other individual chambers across the country already offer their own health-insurance plans. Deane said the Mount Kisco chamber's decision to offer medical plans has nothing to do with the reform bill or politics.

To find out more about the Mount Kisco Chamber of Commerce's health insurance options, visit their site here.