As costs continue to increase, small businesses are cutting health benefits for employees.
Amid the continuing uncertainty of healthcare in the United States, skyrocketing premiums have led to small businesses dropping healthcare coverage for employees. The Star Tribune reports that at companies with fewer than 50 workers, only 50 percent are offering health benefits, down from 59 percent in 2012. The article also cites information from the Minnesota Council of Health Plans, which found that 273,437 Minnesotans were covered by small group health plans in 2016, down from 348,026 covered under the plans in 2012.
“The numbers are still sticker shock numbers, closing in on $19,000 a year,” said Drew Altman, founder of the Kaiser Family Foundation, according to the Star Tribune. “If this is the new normal, it’s not a new normal that people are happy with – and they have good reason not to be happy with it.”
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that family coverage under an employer offered plan increased 4 percent in 2015, and then 3 percent each year after that. The survey also found that, since 2012, the average family premium has increased by 19 percent, reports the Star Tribune.
NFIB continues to advocate against the Affordable Care Act and the enormous cost burden it has placed on small businesses.
“The skyrocketing cost of healthcare was made worse by Obamacare and now, after seven years of promises to repeal it, small businesses will continue to endure Obamacare’s crushing taxes and mandates,” wrote NFIB president and CEO Juanita Duggan after congress failed to repeal and replace the ACA in July.
