Small businesses are often at a disadvantage when shopping for health insurance. Some have gained clout by forming a pool with other small firms -- giving their workers access to more doctors and shielding them from large rate hikes if one or two workers contract a major illness.

Capitol Hill Republicans are pushing legislation aimed at further assisting these small-firm alliances.

• Large corporations which self-insure -- setting aside reserves to pay workers' health bills -- are subject only to federal law, escaping the state taxes and regulations that drive up the cost of care.

• The plan is to give the same treatment to trade groups which set up the same kind of health plans for small firms -- thereby making the pools more cost-effective and promoting greater health insurance coverage among workers at small businesses.

• At companies with fewer than 10 employees, 32.8 percent of workers are uninsured; with 25 to 99 employees the figure is 20.8 percent.

• But the proportion of uninsured drops steadily as the number of employees increases to between 500 and 999 -- at which the proportion falls to 10.9 percent uninsured.

Since 53 percent of American workers are employed by firms with fewer than 500 employees, encouraging the pooling concept through legislative reforms could result in greatly expanded coverage, proponents point out.

At large corporations employing 10,000 or more workers, only about 5.5 percent of health insurance premiums go to administrative costs. But that figure rises to 40 percent at firms with only one to four workers.