Report Highlights Small Business Misconceptions about Health Insurance
More than half of California’s small businesses are not offering health insurance to their employees, according to a recent report published jointly by the University of California at Los Angeles and University of California at Berkeley. The Health Insurance Policy Program Report found that 59 percent of California employers with three to nine full-time employees do not offer health insurance. Companies with 10 to 50 employees fared better, according to the report, which says that 38 percent of those companies do not provide health insurance for their workers.
Many small businesses operated under several misconceptions about the cost and availability of health insurance, according to the study, which included a list of the 10 most commonly held misconceptions about health insurance for small businesses:
bull; Health insurance is too expensive to provide to my employees
bull; Whether I offer employees health insurance or not makes little difference to the success of my business
bull; No one will service me because my company is too small
bull; Employees would rather have the value of the premiums in their paycheck.
bull; I shouldn’t offer employee health insurance until I have a full-time HR person for management and administration
bull; Monthly health insurance premiums are unaffordable because, as an employer, I have to pay 100 percent of the cost
bull; The only way to evaluate a health plan is by looking at the provider directory
bull; Health insurance providers on the Internet are either not qualified, inexperienced or do not offer top carriers bull; I don’t have time during the day to find the best plan for my business
bull; All health insurance brokers offer basically the same services For more information on this report, visit [www.healthinsurance.com], or call (888) 969-1020.—Andrea Bermudez
