Offering health insurance with less coverage might attract some employers to cover their employees, but such coverage might not be good for the patient.

Would you buy a health insurance policy that doesn't cover maternity care, comes with a $25,000 lifetime benefit ceiling and doesn't give you a choice of hospitals?

Maybe not, but that soon could be all the choice your employer offers. A bill to legalize such drastically limited "flexible benefit" policies is steaming through the Legislature with massive support from the business, insurance and hospital lobbies. There is no organized opposition. Even Insurance Commissioner Tom Gallagher is on board. The House Insurance Committee approved it unanimously Wednesday despite misgivings expressed by several members for benefits such as mammograms, emergency room access and newborn coverage that the law now deems essential. When one lawmaker asked which if any benefits the new law would require, she got, in not so few words, this answer: Nothing.

This "no-mandate option," as sponsor Frank Farkas, R-St. Petersburg, described the bill, is the Legislature's intended answer to an undeniable crisis in Florida health care. A record 2.8-million Floridians had no health insurance in 1999, before the recession. A recent Chamber of Commerce survey reported that only 77 percent of its members offer health insurance to their workers, down sharply from 91 percent two years ago. Rising premiums get the blame.

Under Farkas' bill, which Majority Leader Jim King is sponsoring in the Senate, employers could offer either traditional coverage, with all the benefits the state presently mandates, or new "flexible benefit" plans tailored to what they think they can afford. Lobbyists said they expect the alternative to attract employers who don't offer coverage now, along with young healthy male workers who often refuse coverage because they can't imagine needing it.

The specter of a $25,000 lifetime limit, which is less than the cost of many a one-week hospital stay, came from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which said it might raise the ceiling to $50,000. That's still frightfully low. Workers would be prudent to buy separate catastrophic coverage. But what if their employers didn't offer it?

The Legislature needs to catch its breath and reconsider whether less really adds up to more. If the state no longer requires insurers to pay for correcting a cleft palate, will afflicted children simply go untreated? Or will charities and public hospitals be expected to pick up the bill?

"To offer a policy we call bare bones may not be in everyone's best interest, especially for young families," said Paul Wharton, a professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, who was the only person to speak against the bill.

The fact that Florida is considering such harsh choices condemns the federal government's historic failure to provide for the health care of all citizens, as most other developed countries do. This is not a problem that the states are likely to solve on their own. But they must take care that people not be lulled into thinking they're covered when they're not. Though Farkas' bill would require a warning notice on each "flexible benefit" policy application, it would be nonspecific, advising merely that "the benefits provided by this health plan are limited and may not cover all your medical needs. You should carefully review the(m) . . ."

Buyer beware is always good advice, but it can be empty advice if the buyer has no other choice. Is this the best Florida can do?

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