When Realtor Jeanette Tighe left the large real estate company she was working for 18 months ago, her health insurance costs nearly doubled.

Tighe’s monthly health insurance premium jumped from $363 to $600 – with no coverage for dental office visits or prescription drugs.

But the Burlington Realtor said she feels fortunate because Exit Realty, the company where she is currently a vice president, will pay a portion of the costs. Other real estate agents aren’t so lucky, having to pay as much as $700 to $800 out of pocket for the most basic type of health insurance coverage, or instead going without insurance altogether because they can’t afford it.

“It is a really huge issue for [Realtors],” said Tighe, who serves as vice president of government affairs for the Massachusetts Association of Realtors. “If we could band together to get group insurance, we would have less expensive and better coverage.”

That’s why Tighe will join 150 other Bay State Realtors this week in Washington, D.C., to urge Congress to pass a bill that would enable self-employed workers and small-business employees to join forces through an industry or professional group to negotiate lower health insurance costs.

Supporters say if the law passes, self-employed workers across the country, such as real estate agents and employees at small companies, would have access to the same group insurance plans that are currently available to large corporations and trade unions.

An estimated 28 percent to 30 percent of Realtors nationwide and across Massachusetts are uninsured, according to MAR. That translates to almost 6,600 Realtors statewide and roughly 335,000 nationwide.

“It’s a tremendous burden for these entrepreneurs that we call small-business people,” said Robert N. Authier, MAR’s chief executive officer and executive vice president.

A Universal Concern
But the proposed legislation, sponsored by a Republican Senator from Wyoming, is facing stiff opposition from the insurance industry, a host of health issues advocacy groups, and Democrats who are pushing universal health care coverage – including Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

As recently as last week, Kennedy was quoted in news reports as saying the bill – which opponents say would enable insurance companies to increase premiums for groups considered greater health risks and to bypass state requirements to cover a menu of medical treatments and tests – would undermine the Bay State’s recently passed law to provide health insurance to all.

Peter P. Casey, chief executive officer of Prudential Wilmot Whitney Real Estate in Weston, met with staff from Kennedy’s office twice last month to garner support for the bill. Kennedy is a ranking member of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee, which passed the measure and sent it to the Senate for a vote.

Casey said it was clear from those recent conversations that Kennedy opposed the bill because it does not provide universal health care coverage. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives passed similar legislation last year, known as the Small Business Health Fairness Act.

Casey questioned why Senate leaders would not embrace legislation that could help so many uninsured people.

“As the Senate contemplates what to do with this bill, I think it would be useful to keep in mind that the House of Representatives has passed this bill or something like it five years in a row, and roughly 8 million people who are without insurance would presumably be in a position for the first time ever to buy insurance at competitive rates,” said Casey.

The National Association of Realtors has joined a coalition of groups, including the National Federation of Independent Business and the Associated Builders and Contractors, to aggressively campaign for passage of the small-business health plan legislation.

NAR, which has spent millions on a national advertising campaign in support of the bill this year, disputes critics who say the legislation would preempt all state insurance laws.

The group argues that under the proposed bill, quality health insurance plans must be provided and any insurer working with a trade association would be required to be licensed in every state in which the small-business plan enrolls participants, which means they would be regulated by the state’s insurance commissioner.

And even though a small-business health plan can provide insurance offerings that don’t comply with state mandates, at least one additional plan option would have to be presented that complies with the state mandates or with coverage offered by a state employee plan in one of the five most populous states, NAR maintains.

The legislation will be a top focus at the NAR midyear legislative meeting, which starts today in Washington, D.C. Realtors from across the country are expected to converge on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with members of Congress about the bill and other concerns.

The health care issue resonates here in Massachusetts, where state leaders passed a first-in-the-nation law last month that requires all residents to have health insurance by July 1, 2007.

Stephen Ryan, general counsel and government affairs director for MAR, said self-employed workers will have to verify on their state income tax returns that they acquired insurance through a provider – and if they are not insured, any refunds will be withheld and penalties will be imposed in subsequent years.

Anne Rendle, chief executive officer of the Northeast Association of Realtors, said she gets several calls every month from members who ask if they can obtain affordable health care coverage through MAR or NAR – which both provide discounts on other types of services and products.

“We have to tell them that we can’t offer that,” Rendle said. “It’s so sad when people call me up because they say, ‘I have nothing – no insurance at all.'”

Rendle often refers agents and brokers to the local Chamber of Commerce, which offers a health insurance plan to its members. She said when she heard that NAR was making the small-business health plan legislation a priority, she was “delighted.”

“It’s the No. 1 thing I hear from members that they really want, and they don’t understand why we can’t do it,” she said.

Don McMeniman, who manages the offices of Dick Lepine Real Estate in Dracut, Westford and Lowell, estimated that at least half of the approximately 70 agents at his company don’t have insurance.

McMeniman said he pays $1,000 a month to insure himself and his wife. He would be paying much more if he were not a member of the Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce, which gives him access to a small group plan.

Some real estate agents are able to get good insurance coverage because a spouse works for a company that provides a health care plan, but many can only afford catastrophic insurance, he said.

As a group, Realtors tend to be older and therefore have an even tougher time accessing affordable health insurance. According to the most recent member profile done by NAR, the median age for Realtors nationwide was 52 years old.

Larger real estate firms typically offer coverage to executives and staff, not sales associates. Of 1,800 Realtors responding to a recent MAR survey, more than half indicated that they purchase health insurance themselves.

And 96 percent of the respondents said they want to see the Realtor association make some type of health insurance plan available now that the state has mandated health insurance coverage.

Authier, MAR’s chief executive, said the bill being debated by the Senate would put small businesses on the same footing as companies and unions, and enable them to pull together to get better rates on health insurance.

With 1.2 million members, NAR would certainly be in a strong position to negotiate favorable rates for its membership, noted McMeniman.