Committee advances bill to let farm bureau offer health plans exempt from state insurance rules

The Ohio Senate Financial Institutions, Insurance and Technology Committee voted unanimously to favorably report amended Senate Bill 100 to the committee on rules and reference after hearing proponent testimony and adopting amendment 0348.

The bill, as amended, would exempt health care benefit coverage provided by a nonprofit agricultural membership organization from certain state insurance laws, require written disclosures that the coverage is not insurance, and add references to the Physician Health Plan Partnership Act and the law governing multiple employer welfare arrangements to the list of state insurance laws from which the coverage is exempt.

Rose Hartshoe, a member of the Ohio Farm Bureau Board of Trustees and a Northwest Ohio dairy farmer, testified in support of the bill. “We will now come to order...,” she opened her testimony and later asked the committee to “imagine a…