Tri-Lakes small businesses receive coverage via chamber grant

PLATTSBURGH -- The Plattsburgh-North Country Chamber of Commerce has received a grant to help bring health coverage to small-business employees in the Tri-Lakes region.

The New York State Health Foundation awarded the chamber $107,688 for its Overcoming Tri-Lakes Small Business Barriers to Offering Employee Health Coverage project.

The chamber is serving as the project administrator for a group that includes the Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, Tupper Lake Chamber of Commerce, Lake Placid/Essex County Visitors Bureau, Excellus Blue Cross/Blue Shield and the Uninsured Task Force coordinated by Adirondack Medical Center.

First phase

Chamber President Garry Douglas said the Tri-Lakes area is the target of a first phase designed to demonstrate how more small employers in rural areas can be reached and drawn into health-insurance options they don't use, such as the Healthy New York program.

"Surveys, focus groups and other methods will be used to define both the initial objections and the best messages and approaches for achieving enrollment increases," he said in a news release.

Chandler Ralph, president and CEO of Adirondack Medical Center and chair of the Tri-Lakes Uninsured Task Force, said small businesses are the backbone of the local economy.

"I think this is a wonderful opportunity for those businesses to take an active role in establishing a new service to help them better respond to their employees' health-insurance needs," she said in a statement.

Good for business

Saranac Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Sylvie Nelson also chairs the advisory committee that oversees the project. She said businesses that can offer health-care benefits attract the best employees, which helps them succeed.

"Moreover, it is a quality-of-life issue as employees that have insurance do not have to worry about a devastating financial situation in the face of a health crisis and won't avoid basic health care because they can't afford it," Nelson said in the release.

Coalition members believe more small-business owners and self-employed people would get health insurance if they knew all of their options.

The goal is to start a successful grass-roots approach that can be copied throughout rural New York, including the North Country.

"The challenge is reaching an audience that by its nature can be very busy and difficult to engage," Douglas said.