HARRISBURG — Gov. Ed Rendell on Tuesday pressed the case for legislation to place all public school employees under a single health insurance plan as a way to slow the growth in property taxes.

The bill, which is being introduced in the House after several years of work, would create a 12-member board to forge one insurance plan for all the state's school districts. Currently many districts buy individual group policies, while some districts are organized into insurance-buying consortiums and others buy separate policies for professional and service employees.

The aim is to suppress increases in health care costs — and the property taxes that pay for school employee benefits — by spreading risk more widely, managing benefits better and lowering school administrative costs.

All but one of the 501 school districts would be required to go along with it, encompassing 230,000 teachers and support workers. Philadelphia would have the option of joining in.

The legislation could face numerous hurdles in the Legislature. Some districts are worried about losing benefits or paying more under a unified state plan than they now pay.

Rendell said the use of regional pricing may resolve districts' concerns about paying more, and pointed out that the state would sweeten the deal by paying up to half of the year-to-year increase in health insurance premiums.

But the governor also suggested that districts would have to make some sacrifices.

"Everybody out there has to understand that we've got to cut costs in every single way possible," Rendell said during a news conference at his Capitol office.

About half the state's districts require employees to pay part of the cost of health premiums, said Rep. Steve Nickol, R-York, a principal author of the bill.

"It's one of the sticky issues that, from the perspective of the various school districts and teachers' unions, you know you're going ... to have some people paying in more than they do today and some people paying less," Nickol said.

A handful of other states, including Ohio and New Jersey, have enacted similar legislation, albeit with varying provisions, including regional plans or opt-out provisions for individual districts, Nickol said.

The Pennsylvania School Boards Association, which lobbies state policy makers on behalf of local school boards, and the state's largest school employee union, the Pennsylvania State Education Association, were consulted on the drafting of the legislation.

However, neither group endorsed it, saying separately that while they support the concept, they need to see more details of how the plan will work.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, said the Senate GOP is planning a hearing to determine what such a plan would cost and how much it might save districts.

Pennsylvania school districts spend about $1.5 billion annually on medical and prescription drug insurance, or $1 out of every $6 in school property taxes collected, according to Rendell. A 2004 study by a consulting firm hired by the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee said school districts could save up to $585 million a year, and more in later years.

Under the bill, employee unions would give up the right to bargain for better health insurance benefits during contract negotiations. The PSEA, however, would get four representatives on the board, and approval of any board decision would need at least two union votes, Rendell said.

Rendell and Nickol said a side benefit of a statewide plan would be that teachers would be unlikely to strike in a single school district over health benefits.

The Philadelphia school district is big enough to stand on its own, and the union that represents 17,000 employees there, the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, did not like the idea of losing the ability to negotiate for benefits, Nickol and Rendell said.

A federation spokeswoman, Barbara Goodman, disputed that version, saying the union understood that Philadelphia would have its own regional health plan because the school district is so big and because it does not raise its own tax revenue, like other districts do.