Small businesses with fewer than 50 employees will not be forced to get coverage, even though they may anyway, simply because it offers a more affordable option than is presently available and is wrapped up in a lot if incentives. One of the incentives is being able to group together with other small businesses to buy insurance.
Being a former small business owner, this is certainly good news as far as I am concerned. I remember at one point NOT being able to get insurance at all for our small mom and pop operation. It was quite frustrating. As we grew, it was even more frustrating not to be able to pool resources with other similar small companies and buy a group insurance plan. With the passage of the new health care reform bill that will now be possible for small business owners…
Another great thing that the new health care reform bill will do is to provide employees more freedom to move between jobs. Employees that have formerly held onto a job only because of medical benefits will now be able to move more freely between jobs - and – strike out on their own as entrepreneurs, buying their own health insurance plans.
I find this aspect of the bill principally exciting because I just left a job where a lot of of the employees stayed there for the health benefits only, something I found to be very disturbing. I had never seen such a group of hard working people. A lot of of them stayed trapped in a dead end job only because of their medical benefits. Even though some of them were very talented, they were afraid to step out into latest ventures.
With passage of the latest health care reform bill small business owners will have more access and hopefully more help connecting to cost saving group plans.