ST. PAUL - Legislation requiring most Minnesota businesses to provide paid family leave to workers is on hold until new cost estimates are available.

"It looks a lot to me like MNsure math," Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, said Tuesday, referring to the controversial state-run online health insurance sales program that critics say cost far more than expected.

Gazelka questioned whether the family leave bill by Sen. Katie Sieben, D-Cottage Grove, provides enough money to care for Minnesotans who would take up to 12 weeks off work to care for pregnancy, care for a new child or care for a family member.

"It's a whole lot like Obamacare was," Gazelka said of the federal health law that MNsure was launched to support.

"I also want to know what the impacts are," Senate Tax Chairman Rod Skoe, D-Clearbrook, said.

The bill will not pass his committee until the panel gets "a handle on what those costs are going to be," Skoe added.

Cost estimates are based on 45,000 Minnesotans receiving family leave payments a year and paying $110 million to them. Administration costs of the insurance-like program are estimated at less than $8 million a year.

State Department of Employment and Economic Development officials told the Tax Committee that the estimates are accurate, but work continues in their agency and the Revenue Department to hone the fiscal assessment.

Sieben's bill would require businesses with more than 20 workers to take part in a state-run program. A worker and his employer each would pay 43 cents to $2 a week, depending on salary, to be part of the program. Benefits would be lower than a worker's wages.

Sieben called it a "relatively modest cost."

"It just seems like such a small amount, why would you oppose that?" Skoe asked a Minnesota Chamber of Commerce lobbyist who urged senators to vote against the measure.

Businesses that offer the same partial pay replacement plan or better could apply to the state to opt out.

Sen. Tom Bakk, D-Cook, a former labor leader, said the bill should help the chamber's small business members because it would give them an inexpensive way to provide better benefits to workers. He said the current job situation is similar to the post-World War II era when businesses found it tough to find workers.

"They are never going to be able to offer this," Bakk said of a plan like Sieben offered, "and they cannot attract employees."

Republicans said businesses should be allowed to offer their own benefits, as Sen. Dave Thompson of Lakeville, said, "rather than creating a cost structure for businesses they may or may not want. ... This is absolutely anti-free market."

Gazelka added: "As much as I think it is a wonderful idea to help people, I really believe we should allow our private sector employers decide what to offer their employees. That is a way better way to provide benefits than with a heavy hand."

Sieben said that 83 percent of employers would be required to participate in the family leave program, those with more than 20 workers and that do not already offer the benefit.

The ability to help parents and grandparents is vital, Kim Houle told the committee. She cares for her mother, now in hospice care.

"Only 20 percent of us get to die instantly," she said.

Cam Winton of the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce said his organization agrees with Sieben's goal, but urged senators to take more time to improve it. "It seeks to impose a one-size-fits-all solution to what is an incredibly complex issue."