A bill changing the way Americans get their health insurance has found some Idaho support.

In a rush of bipartisan feeling, U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, signed on Nov. 13 as a co-sponsor of a bill that would require all Americans to purchase private health insurance. The bill, written by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., would have employers kick in a percentage of premium costs, but would place the responsibility of selecting a plan in the hands of individual Americans.

The bill, Crapo spokesman Lindsay Nothern said, is a mix of Republican and Democratic priorities that at the very least should trigger productive debate on health care.

"The important thing is to get some blueprints out there and some discussion points that we can move forward on," Nothern said on Thursday. "We'll have to go in and fill in some of the other points later on."

Wyden, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee with Crapo, first introduced the bill in January as a route to bipartisan health care reform. The legislation would require all U.S. citizens over age 19 to enroll themselves and any dependents in a private insurance plan.

Such plans would be offered through new "Health Help Agencies" created in each state, and states would be in charge of enforcing the law and regulating the plans - the premiums of which could vary based only on geography, smoking status and family size.

Employers - even those who do not currently provide health insurance to their employees - would pay between 2 percent and 25 percent of their employees' premiums based on a sliding scale. Families at or under the poverty line would have their premiums fully covered, and those between 100 percent and 400 percent of the line would receive some subsidies, once again based on a scale.

The act would also make changes to Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program - parts of which would overlap with the system - deny subsidies to adult illegal immigrants and place new requirements on Medicare drug plans, hospitals and end-of-life-care facilities, according to a summary on Wyden's Web site.

Crapo doesn't agree with everything in the bill, which is still being looked over by the finance committee, Nothern said. But the proposal, he said, is a first step toward solving a serious national problem.

"Keep in mind it's a vehicle," Nothern said. "What you see in this bill today probably won't be in the bill that gets moved on tomorrow."

There are several parts Crapo would like to keep, including the reliance on private health insurance. The provisions include some steps that, in the senator's eyes, could lighten the burden on small-business owners - who could pool their plans together to achieve the lower rates enjoyed by government officials and large corporations such as Dell.

But Nothern said he's aware the measure as a whole may be a hard sell to Idahoans, whose first thoughts may be a similar bill in Massachusetts signed into law in April 2006 by then-Gov. Mitt Romney. The idea could be a hard sell to Crapo's fellow congressional delegates as well.

A spokeswoman for Rep. Mike Simpson described the bill as the type Simpson hasn't supported in the past. And Sid Smith, a spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, said Craig sees "a lot of good things" in the Healthy Americans Act, but is leaning toward a related bill that doesn't legally require private insurance.

Some in the insurance industry may not be on board either. Mike Tatko, a spokesman for Regence BlueShield of Idaho, said Friday that Wyden had consulted the company while preparing the bill, an encouraging move. But the proposed private model, he said, is not the company's first choice.

"The employer-based system as it is now … is really the model that we agree with right now," Tatko said. "We think that's the best for all involved."

Nate Poppino can be reached at 735-3237 or npoppino@magicvalley.com.