Report Title:

Group health insurance

Description:

Extends group health insurance coverage for small employers to include self-employed individuals with no employees or small businesses with only part-time employees.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.B. NO.	1320
TWENTY-FOURTH LEGISLATURE, 2007
STATE OF HAWAII

A BILL FOR AN ACT

RELATING TO INSURANCE.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

     SECTION 1.  Section 431:2-201.5, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (b) to read as follows:

     "(b)  The following definitions shall be used when applying Title 42 United States Code section 300gg, et seq.:

     "Employee" means [an employee who works on a full-time basis with a normal workweek of twenty hours or more.] any individual employed by an employer, whether the individual works full-time or part-time, including a self-employed individual.

     "Group health issuer" means all persons offering health insurance coverage to any group or association, but shall not include those persons offering benefits exempted from Title I of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, P.L. 104-191, under sections 732(c) and 733(c) of Title I of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 and sections 2747 and 2791(c) of the Public Health Service Act.

"Self-employed individual" means a person operating the person's own business, whether as a sole proprietorship or in any other legally recognized manner in which a person may operate the person's own business, and who has a general excise tax license for that business.

     "Small employer" means an employer, including but not limited to a self-employed individual, who employs between one and no more than fifty employees."

     SECTION 2.  Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken.  New statutory material is underscored.

     SECTION 3.  This Act shall take effect on July 1, 2007.

INTRODUCED BY:	_____________________________
	BY REQUEST