Over the last 18 months health insurance possibilities for individuals and small businesses have opened up.

The state legislature passed laws that made it easier for large insurance companies such as Regence and Premera to offer less expensive health options than they had previously offered. Beforehand, the difficulty of obtaining health insurance for a sole proprietor business was a huge thorn in the side. Enough to burst entrepreneurial enthusiasm — fast.

Now starting this year, health benefits to employees are 100-percent tax deductible, up from a 60-percent deduction. That’s good because, according to the National Coalition on Health Care, health care expenditures are expected to increase faster than wages across the nation and in Washington.

It is easier to provide benefits, but it is no secret that costs continue to rise. A survey done for the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that nationally the employee’s share for single coverage now costs an average of $454 per year. That’s $95 more than last year, an increase of 27 percent. Family coverage averaged $2,084, 16 percent more than last year.

At 29.5 percent, Washington employees pay the sixth highest percentage of their heath care costs in the country. New Mexico is the highest in the nation at 33.7 percent. By contrast, at No. 50, Michigan employees pay 13.9 percent of their own health care costs.

So, though it is no longer impossible to get individual and sole proprietor coverage, chambers of commerce have started to offer health insurance programs for members. Under the assumption that there is power in numbers, chambers brokered deals with health insurance providers that offered much cheaper rates than the small business owners could receive by themselves.

The Gig Harbor Peninsula Area Chamber of Commerce started to offer its members group coverage in 2001. The chamber had a custom-made plan with Options Health Care. It’s one that covers prescription drugs, mental and physical health, as well as limited dental coverage that, in 2001 started at $166 a month.

“There is also no medical underwriting (background check), which is a big draw,” said Nancy Giacolone, president and owner of Olympic Crest Insurance, which specializes in employee benefits.

Though most chambers of commerce aren’t of any great size, they do have slightly more leverage in bargaining power when it comes to annual cost reviews, Giacolone said.

(Temple A. Stark is a free-lance writer living in Port Orchard. Reach him at writer@templestark.com)

Useful numbers:

• Basic Health of Washington State, 800-826-2444
• Group Health Cooperative of Puget Sound, 800-358-8815
• Kitsap Physicians Service, 800-552-7114
• Premera Blue Cross, Western Washington, 800-752-6663
• Regence BlueShield of Washington, 888-344-8234