WASHINGTON – Bills allowing small businesses to pool health insurance coverage have passed the House six times over the past six years without the Senate taking action. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, called this week for the Senate to pass a small-business health plan bill she has introduced.

Snowe joined Sen. Jim Talent, R-Miss., Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Jack Farris, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, Thursday to call for public support of the bill.

However, opponents of pooled health care held their own news conference to warn against adoption of Snowe’s bill.

Both sides agreed that small businesses are struggling to afford health insurance for their employees and in many cases are not offering it at all. Associated health plans, AHPs, would allow smaller employers to band together across the country to buy insurance, giving them more bargaining power and cutting down on administrative costs, Snowe said. This would put them on an equal footing with large corporations and unions, according to Snowe.

“Small businesses deserve to be treated as equally and equitably as large businesses,” Snowe said. “AHPs give them greater leverage and power.”

However, the National Small Business Association, the National Governors Association and other organizations countered that under the bill, AHPs would not be subject to state regulation and would be susceptible to fraud and such practices as increasing premiums when a customer becomes sick. Under Snowe’s bill, the U.S. Labor Department would oversee AHPs instead of the states.

“The other side has nice dreams of a bucolic world,” said Brian Webb, a spokesman for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which represents state regulators. “But we know what will actually happen.

“If it sounds too good to be true, you know what? It is,” Webb said.

Snowe, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Small Business, said she did not know whether her bill would come to the Senate floor. However, Snowe said she believes Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., is supportive of Senate consideration of her legislation.