Though employers are required to provide employee benefits to their workers, as per the business owner mandate of the healthcare overhaul, the same standard doesn't apply to their workers' families. As a result, more small businesses are considering no longer making this type of coverage available to their workers' loved ones.
According to The Associated Press, many insurers have informed small business owners that their rates could rise by as much as 20 percent or more come January 2014. As a result, this has some executives weighing whether they will continue to make benefits available to their employees' families, as they are not required to pay for it if they do happen to offer it.
Mike Shoop, a small business owners from Greeley, Colo., told the news agency that he's giving it some deep thought given the price quotes he's gotten from his insurer.
"We're very generous in what we pay," said Shoop. "But like most companies, we're about at our maximum of the total dollars that we can spend on healthcare."
Sentiment among company managers has been waning in recent months, in part due to the cost of healthcare. According to a recent poll conducted by the National Federation of Independent Business, optimism levels fell in July on NFIB's monthly index, dropping more than a half-percent to 94.1.
Bill Dunkelberg, chief economist for the NFIB, indicated that weak positivity is due to a variety of factors, many of them relating to insurance coverage.
"Unfortunately, nothing is being done to allay the most pressing concerns identified by job creators – dealing with rising health insurance costs, regulations, tax complexity, energy costs and general economic uncertainty," he said.
