Gov. David A. Paterson signed into law a measure allowing state insurance regulators to approve allowing health insurers to issue group health insurance policies to cover temporary, part-time, freelance and self-employed workers.

David Paterson

The bill (A.7949/S.4602-A), sponsored by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and Sens. Neil Breslin (D-Albany) and Thomas K. Duane  (D-Manhattan), chairman of the Senate Health Committee, creates a demonstration program that will be portable, meaning workers can carry the coverage with them from project-to-project or job-to-job.

“This is an historic breakthrough for temps, part-time workers, freelancers and the self-employed,” Sara Horowitz, founder and executive director of Freelancers Union, said in a statement. The union’s Freelancers Insurance Co., created last year, served as a model for the law, which Horowitz characterized as a “vital safety net.”

“Our model, the only one of its kind in the nation, is a way to reach the new workforce and get them the coverage they need,” she added.  Freelancers Insurance Co. offers five health insurance plans to the Freelancers’ Unions 120,000 members nationwide.

Paterson said he was happy to expand health care options to these workers.

“New Yorkers have the right to the best health care in the world, and I will do everything in my power to make sure they have access to it,” the governor said in a statement. “I am proud that New York State is leading the charge to insure our citizens.”

The new law will enable members of organizations like Freelancers Union to select plans that are custom designed based on their needs, as opposed to buying whatever plans happen to be commercially available and may be subject to cancellation based on the insurer’s financial reasoning, Horowitz said

She said the law means that the New York State Insurance Department “is recognizing FIC as if it were a large employer offering insurance to a workers’ group.”

The independent workforce, defined as freelancers, consultants, independent contractors, temps, part-timers, contract workers, contingent employees and the self-employed, is currently comprised of more than 30 million workers across the nation.