PROVIDENCE — In a gesture aimed at showing they are willing to “share the pain” in a season of budget cuts, members of Rhode Island’s House of Representatives yesterday overwhelmingly voted for a bill that would require them to pay 10 percent of the cost of their state-provided health, dental and eye-care insurance.

The machine vote was 66 to 2, but the number voting in favor grew by one when House Speaker William J. Murphy agreed, according to his spokesman, to count the vote of a lawmaker — Rep. Steven Smith, D-Providence — who was not in the chamber at the time of the official vote. The only nay votes came from Representatives William San Bento, D-Pawtucket, and Timothy Williamson, D-West Warwick.

Without the Senate’s consent, however, the proposal will not become law.

Amid strong indications the bill is NGN — which was defined as “not going nowhere in the Senate” — House Republicans urged their House colleagues who are not yet paying any portion of their health-care premiums voluntarily to make a pledge yesterday to join them in doing so, regardless what happens in the Senate.

“You can vote green [yes] but you know as well as the rest of us that this is NGN in the Senate. It’s dead,” said House Minority Whip Nicholas Gorham, R-Coventry. “So it’s either going to be a publicity stunt today or it’s going to be the real thing.”

“Let us show the Senate, our colleagues in the Senate, what it’s like to do what’s right. Maybe through shame and shame alone we’ll make the Senate see our way,” chimed House Minority Leader Robert Watson, R-East Greenwich.

Williamson suggested they all go a step further by renouncing their health benefits entirely along with their $13,508-a-year salaries as part-time lawmakers. Most have full-time jobs as teachers, lawyers and businesspeople, such as a pizzeria owner and a funeral director.

“Don’t start clapping yourself on the back too hard, you may break your hand,” Williamson said. “The Senate is already telling you they are not going to pass this. So if they are not going to pass it, let’s put the heat on them…Let’s amend it. Let’s get rid of the salaries. Let’s get rid of the benefits. Tell the people of Rhode Island we’re serving them: not for money and not for health insurance. Anybody with me?”

“Wow,” he said after a few seconds. “Silence is deafening.”

Lawmakers meet three days a week, six months a year. And right now, they are eligible to get UnitedHealthcare, Delta Dental and a Vision Service Plan for free at a cost to taxpayers of $5,831 a year for single coverage; $16,293 for a family, according to newly revised cost figures from the General Assembly.

The bill by Rep. Amy Rice, D-Portsmouth, would not only require they pay 10 percent of their premiums, it would also eliminate the $2,002 waiver payment currently given to lawmakers who forgo the free health care even though they all still get free Delta Dental and eye-care insurance.

As for the bill’s chances, Senate President Joseph Montalbano, D-North Providence, has not responded to repeated inquiries. Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, has said she believes “that it should be a voluntary decision. It certainly defeats whatever power of example that they are attempting to demonstrate by mandating it, rather than having it be voluntary.”

With the state facing a potential deficit next year of upwards of $400 million, the debate over legislative health care has taken on a symbolic significance that, as several lawmakers noted, goes beyond the $1.3-million price tag.

In recent weeks, the General Assembly passed a budget-repair bill that reduced aid to cities and towns by $12.5 million, knocked 3,400 low-income children off welfare and another 2,800 “non-citizen” children — including 1,250 who are in the country legally — off state-subsidized health care. They also raised the amount that full-time state employees will have to pay for post-retirement health insurance if they leave after Sept. 30.

“It’s about everyone sharing some of the pain,” and “taking into account that many people are struggling out there,” said House Majority Leader Gordon Fox, D-Providence.

At today’s rates, paying 10 percent for the full package would cost $48.59 monthly for an individual plan, $135 for family coverage.

That is not as much as the average Rhode Island employee pays, according to a 2007 national survey by the United Benefit Advisors — an alliance of 142 employee-benefit companies. Among the key findings: the average Rhode Island employee contributes 28.8 percent of the premium cost for individual coverage, which equates to $118 monthly, and 40.4 percent — $397 monthly — for a family plan.

As the vote neared, more and more legislators volunteered to pay the 10 percent. In the House, 26 of the 57 lawmakers receiving health insurance have already volunteered to pay 10 percent of the cost, 15 are slated to receive $2,002 waiver payments in December including four who have pledged to return a 10-percent slice; two have decided to forgo the waiver payments. (The 75-member House has been one short since former Rep. Roger Picard, D-Woonsocket, won an open Senate seat.

In the Senate, 9 of the 32 senators with health coverage are voluntarily paying 10 percent of the premiums, three are positioned to receive the waiver payments and three have announced they will forgo them.

With reports from Steve People, of The Journal State House Bureau

kgregg@projo.com