As the cost of the health coverage skyrockets, small business owners who sometimes share as much as 80% of the bill with their employees are scratching their heads. They are looking for solutions to the problem, but there don’t seem to be any except one. To scale down the health care coverage that they offer to their employees.
Now that is not really a solution. If they go through with it, employees will be burdened. A recent small business survey by Dun & Bradstreet reveals that health care coverage being offered by the small business has gone up especially among female and minority owned businesses. More and more employees of these businesses are receiving medical benefits but at the same time when the employers were asked if they would reduce the coverage to lessen the burden on themselves, the number who said yes doubled from last year.
More people getting medical benefits are a good thing. But at the same time if employers are feeling that they should reduce their coverage, that doesn’t spell out good thing for the employees in the long term. With the cost of the premiums going up and the insurance companies charging more and more money, it seems that the employees will in the future pay most of the cost for medical benefits. Close to 30% of the small businesses have reported that their premiums have increased by 20% and close to 3/4th of all small businesses report that their premiums are going up from last year. If the cost of medical benefits were dumped on employees it would be a disaster for small businesses because most people would want to move to bigger companies where the insurance coverage cost for them will be friendlier.
