Health insurance alternative offered to Oklahoma’s small businesses by State Chamber

OKLAHOMA CITY — Small businesses in Oklahoma can enroll in a new health care option being offered by the State Chamber of Oklahoma.

ChamberCare is now accepting applications from small businesses headquartered in Oklahoma. This option is available to employers who are members of the State Chamber or participating local chambers and employ between two and 50 people.

"A majority of our state is small businesses, and one of the things small businesses have a hard time with is finding ways to pay for increasingly rising insurance costs all across the board," said Carla Schaeperkoetter, chief operating officer for the State Chamber. "So we just wanted to try and find an alternative to what's currently out there in the Oklahoma market for small businesses … so we were able to model this after what some other State Chambers around the country have done and seen success in the last 10 years or so."

She said the State Chamber will be implementing ChamberCare for itself.

"People are grateful for the opportunity to get quoted, to have something out there that could be a better alternative for them," Schaeperkoetter said. "So we're definitely getting a lot of interest from our members, but also local chamber members as well."

The program was officially licensed in August and began the quoting process for businesses in September. This process takes three to four days and is done by brokers, Schaeperkoetter said.

ChamberCare will be part of the Aetna network to provide medical coverage, but no dental or vision. She said the health care option is self-funded, meaning payments will be made into a "pot of money" that will pay the claims.

"A lot of big companies have self-funded health insurance plans so they pay into a giant pot of money and they pay their own claims," Schaeperkoetter said. "If they are a member of one of our participating local chambers or the State Chamber, they all can pay into this plan together. It's almost like they're all joining their small businesses together to make one large business."

The cost for employers will vary from business to business, depending on the outcomes of health surveys taken by employees. Schaeperkoetter said the State Chambers hopes to enroll people on the plan soon to be able to provide some data on costs.

Chad Warmington, president and CEO of the State Chamber of Oklahoma, said in a statement he hopes ChamberCare will offer small businesses a way to deal with rising costs of operating.