CHICAGO - According to a survey by SurePayroll, the nation's largest online payroll service provider for small businesses, many small business owners that are currently offering healthcare benefits may not next year.
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Based on survey results, 11 percent of the small business owners who currently offer healthcare benefits say they may not do so in 2007, depending on how healthcare costs fare in the second half of 2006.

"If you think that we've got health insurance issues now, imagine if 350,000 small businesses stopped offering health insurance in 2007," said Michael Alter, president of SurePayroll. "The alarm on small business healthcare has been sounding for quite a while, and legislators keep hitting the snooze button. We cannot continue to ignore this problem."

According to the survey, 58 percent of small businesses currently offer small business health insurance to employees. Of those who offer insurance, 56 percent pay for at least 80 percent of the overall cost of their employees' healthcare.

Preferred Provider Organization (PPO) plans are the most popular, offered by 62 percent of respondents, while 18 percent offer Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plans and 20 percent offer combination PPO/HMO plans.

Of those who do not offer a healthcare plan now, 44 percent have no plans to offer healthcare benefits in 2007. Forty-six percentof surveyed small business owners who do not offer healthcare benefits, indicate that their interest in offering healthcare benefits in 2007 depends entirely on the costs of healthcare plans.

"If you don't solve small business healthcare problems, you put a big portion of the overall economy in a precarious position," said Alter. "The key here is for legislators to look more aggressively at tax credits for small business healthcare. Furthermore, the delays in legalizing interstate group purchasing of small business health insurance must stop. Finally, there has to be more supply-side cost containment in the healthcare industry because small businesses don't want to be in the business of working their tails off simply to meet their healthcare costs."

Copyright © 2006. News Orleans City Business.