Employees covered by health plans may get cash dividends from their insurers for healthy behavior under a coming law inspired by an Albany doctor.

Senate Bill 679 has cleared the legislature, and Gov. Ted Kulongoski likely will sign it next week, his office said this morning.

The bill was the idea of Dr. John D. "Jack" Lees, an Albany ophthalmologist, said Sen. Frank Morse, who sponsored and worked on the measure along with Rep. Andy Olson.

Lees said today the idea is to get insurers and employers together with groups like the YMCA to develop wellness programs to help reduce obesity, smoking and other conditions or actions harmful to health. Participants in the programs then would be eligible for cash dividends on their insurance premiums.

The results, he believes, could be huge in terms of people feeling better and healthcare costs coming down.

Morse said: "It will make a difference. The choices we make in life often have more to do with our health and health costs than genetics."

Rick Rebel, an Albany insurance expert who also supported the bill, said it will benefit primarily people covered by insurance plans for small employers - with two to 50 workers - which make up 80 percent of all employment.

Without the law change, such insurance plans cannot offer cash benefits for things like losing weight without filing new rates, according to Rebel.

In larger group plans, such benefits can already be negotiated.

The bill allows cash dividends to people enrolled in health plans for insurer-approved "healthy behaviors" such as "fitness, healthy eating and other activities that are beneficial to good health."

The bill, Morse said on the Senate floor before it passed in May, "anticipates, though does not direct, that insurance companies will develop collaborative efforts with community based programs that focus on tobacco cessation, obesity, fitness and nutrition."

The act applies to health benefit plans offered or renewed after the law takes effect, which will be Jan. 1, 2010.

Along with Albany Republicans Morse and Olson, the measure was cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Alan Bates, an Ashland doctor, and Bill Morrisette of Springfield.