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Too, the workforce, for the most part, is not ignorant of the
fact that coverage with the majority of employers will be with the
understanding that the prospective employee will have to participate
in paying for the coverage. Even still, those costs of doing business
that don't qualify as business expenses are ultimately passed onto the
consumer.

Often argued, but simply not true. Again, in this state there was a 100
percent enrollment requirement in the particular plan you offered. A PPO
might allow out of network referrals, but that doesn't help when there is an
existing medical condition and the parents of a kid are comfortable with
their existing pediatrician, which was the case in the example I gave. What
the insurance rule mean is that people end up choosing jobs based on what
health program the company subscribed to rather than the job, income or
career opportunity. Idiotic.

The only exception to the 100 percent rule was if the employee was otherwise
covered by his/her spouse in a different plan.

The commonly held belief that the cost of the program was simply passed onto
the consumer may be true in some types of businesses, but not all. In our
case we competed with companies in other states that didn't have health
plans at all, or with foreign competition. If we tried to pass on the
health care costs, it would diminish our capture ratio of contracts. So, it
comes out of profits (assuming there are any) and weakens the growth of the
company.

Health care programs administered by small business was one of my biggest
pet peeves. A small business isn't designed to administer health care. It
would be far better to increase the salaries of all employees to the amount
that the company contributed (in my case, 75 percent) and allow the
employees to buy their own insurance. That would be fair to all, but
couldn't do it in MA.

Eisboch