Health Care Reform Case Study

I. INTRODUCTION
Small businesses are an important driver of job growth and innovation in the United States. Unfortunately, the current U.S. health care system does not work well for these firms or their employees. Small businesses pay significantly higher insurance premiums and, as a result, are far less likely to offer health insurance to their workers. Properly designed health care reform has the potential to improve the competitiveness of small businesses and the economic condition of workers in this crucial sector of the economy.
In this report, I examine the likely impact of health care reform on small businesses and their employees. I begin by documenting the key role that small businesses play in job creation and the difficulties…show more content…
economy. Two common measures of the size of a firm are its number of employees and its annual payroll. By either measure, the vast majority of firms in the United States are small, and these firms account for a substantial share of private sector employment. Figure 1a shows that, measured by employment, 89 percent of firms had fewer than 20 employees in 2006, and these same firms accounted for 18 percent of private sector employment. Similarly, those with fewer than 50 employees accounted for 96 percent of all firms and 28 percent of private sector employment. Even firms with fewer than 10 employees accounted for more than 3 out of every 4 firms in the United States.(U.S. Small Business administration…show more content…
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