Small-business owners want fewer mandates, more flexibility to drive down costs
Despite decent enrollment numbers, Massachusetts’s small-business owners are still struggling to benefit from the state’s Health Connector and Affordable Care Act-imposed mandates, which are forcing them to shift the burden of rising healthcare costs onto their employees in order to keep operating expenses manageable.
Cost control is the biggest healthcare issue for the state’s small-business owners, many of who believe the Connector isn’t proving as useful as they once hoped.
“Massachusetts needs to return the Connector to its original purpose of becoming an alternative source for affordable health insurance for small businesses and their one million workers in Massachusetts,” says NFIB Massachusetts State Director Bill Vernon.
Around 200,000 people have enrolled for health insurance on the Connector, which operates like Craigslist for the state’s insurance plans.
Fred DeFinis is the owner and only employee of his small business Component Solutions, Inc., which supplies components to manufacturers of backyard swing sets. His insurance premiums have been on the rise since the state’s healthcare overhaul beginning in 2006, some years topping increases of 29 percent.
“The real problem is not the Connector itself,” DeFinis says, “it’s the government intrusion into the healthcare system, which has limited flexibility among both providers and purchasers of health insurance products and driven the costs up because there’s so many mandated coverages.”
For small businesses like his, higher healthcare expenses means enforcing cuts elsewhere, like stagnating hiring and restricting hours.
“It’s a big burden on small businesses that could use that money to buy a new truck or new piece of equipment or something like that,” DeFinis says. “They’re spending it on something that doesn’t benefit the business directly.”
Instead, many small businesses are passing the added costs to employees, who are squeezing more out-of-pocket for their premiums. DeFinis says small-business owners would benefit from fewer mandates and more flexibility in insurance plan design, which would drive overall costs down.
How would a reformed Health Connector impact your small business? Tell us in the comments section below.
