Crackdown on CA small-business self-insurance faces delay

Efforts to more closely regulate a controversial form of healthcare self-insurance being sold to small employers ran into business opposition in the final weeks of the Legislature's session and got shelved for now. But California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones and other backers of the crackdown on company self-insurance vow to bring back the legislation, possibly during a special session on healthcare expected in December. Supporters of more regulation fear that these plans will appeal to companies with healthier workers and, as a result, boost premiums for businesses remaining in typical group plans. Jones said that would undermine a key aspect of the federal healthcare law: to lower premiums by pooling together more healthy and sick workers.