Determined CPA helps change law
Central Business; April 6, 1995
In the Pool
Gov. Whitman has signed a bill changing one sentence in the 1993 small
employer health coverage law. Now any small business can continue its group
health plan as long as it has two or more employees eligible for coverage. The
original language required any group to have at least two people actively
covered.
Why this change in the law? A determined CPA from Dayton, E. Martin
Davidoff, received notice that his plan was being terminated because he was the
only one using it. Says Davidoff: “I have three other employees eligible, but
they were covered by their husbands. But I might need it for another employee
at any time.”
Davidoff says the new law means that in 1996, when New Jersey’s health
reform kicks in, thousands of the state’s smallest businesses won’t be unfairly
excluded from the group health market.
The accountant, who is a neighbor of Sen. Sinagra, the bill’s sponsor, says
getting the change enacted took a year. Says he: “But it took only one trip to
Trenton and some phone calls.
That’s how government should work–you go to your representative and say,
‘Help me.’” Of course, it helps to have a neighbor in Trenton.