Half of U.S. Small Businesses Think Health Law Bad for Them

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-eight percent of U.S. small-business owners say the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) is going to be bad for their business, compared with 9% who say it is going to be good, and 39% who expect no impact.

These findings are from a Gallup survey of 603 small-business owners, conducted April 1-5.

Similarly, 52% of owners say the ACA is going to reduce the quality of healthcare they and their employees receive. This contrasts with 13% who feel it will improve the quality of care their employees get, and 30% who see no impact.

In a separate question, 55% of small-business owners expect the money they pay for healthcare to increase. Five percent expect their healthcare costs to decline, while 37% say the health law will have no impact on what they pay for healthcare.

Owners Already Responding to Healthcare Law

When asked if they had taken any of five specific actions in response to the ACA, 41% of small-business owners say they have held off on hiring new employees and 38% have pulled back on plans to grow their business. One in five (19%) have reduced their number of employees and essentially the same number (18%) have cut employee hours in response to the healthcare law. One in four owners (24%) have thought about eliminating healthcare coverage for their employees.

Implications

Small-business owners are worried about the way the Affordable Care Act is going to affect their business, with about half believing the law is going to be bad for business, add to their healthcare costs, and simultaneously reduce the quality of care they and their employees receive. This overall impression of the ACA is consistent with owners' tendency to be more Republican than Democratic, higher income, more against big government, more conservative, and less optimistic than Americans overall.

However, more important for the U.S. economy in the short term is what small-business owners say they are already doing in anticipation of the new law's continuing implementation. About four in 10 say they are holding off on hiring and new growth plans. About one in five say they are letting people go or cutting employees' hours. Even after discounting small-business owners' political views, these actions suggest the ACA could be a significant drag on the U.S. economy -- at least in the short term.

Survey Methods

Results for the total dataset are based on telephone interviews with 603 small-business owners, conducted April 1-5, 2013. For results based on the total sample of small-business owners, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Sampling is done on a random-digit-dial basis using Dun & Bradstreet sampling of small businesses having $20 million or less of sales or revenues. The data are weighted to be representative of U.S. small businesses within this size range nationwide.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.

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MSNBC’s Al Sharpton Ludicrously Claims Small Biz Backs ObamaCare

The “journalists” at MSNBC continued to fawn over ObamaCare on Friday’s Morning Joe, even in the midst of startling criticism for the bill from David Gregory, liberal host of Meet the Press. The discussion over the president’s massive health care overhaul came after reports that the IRS official in charge of the agency’s unfair treatment of conservative groups during its targeting is now leading the IRS’s efforts to implement ObamaCare.

Gregory pointed out that the Medicare surtax that is funding “Obamacare across the board” is “a lot of money.” “You may not know how it helps you,” he noted, “but you know what it's taking away from you.” Of course, dutiful defenders of Obama like MSNBC Politics Nation host the Rev. Al Sharpton and Huffington Post’s Sam Stein were on hand to defend ObamaCare [see video below the page break].

For his part, Stein seemed to be just fine with the burdensome tax, because it redistributes money into the pockets of “other people.”

David's point – hold on, there is a surtax issue that everyone is going to feel. But that surtax, that money goes to subsidize people's health care. While people will feel a tax issue a lot of other people are going to feel the money in their pocket to buy health care.

Stein’s redistribution of wealth argument wasn’t even the most offensive, though. Sharpton dismissed Gregory’s claim that “costs just keep going up,” touting the “certainty” that Obamacare brings to small segments of the population. Mika Brzezinski even offered a helping hand to Sharpton’s passionate defense of the bill.

GREGORY: Costs just keep going up.

SHARPTON: But there is certainty for people that had preexisting conditions and couldn't get insurance that are now insured.

BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. Young people.

SHARPTON: There is certainty for young people that are now covered that would not have been covered.

BRZEZINSKI: There's preventative care now.

SHARPTON: Preventative care. There's certainty in a lot of areas that people were left out.

What Gregory was trying to point out, and Sharpton dismissed, was the “uncertainty” that millions of Americans and small business owners now face with rapidly-increasing taxes and health care costs under Obamacare.

Then Sharpton declared, with his typical lack of evidence, that small business owners “have come forward and supported Obamacare.” Well, this argument is simply false. As NewsBusters pointed out on Monday, even the ObamaCare-favoring Washington Post admitted that “Small-Business Owners Dread” the new taxes under Obamacare (even though they stuffed the story in the back, on page A15).

We expect Al Sharpton to spout his liberal views day in and day out on MSNBC, but we should expect better than outright lies, especially from a man of the cloth.

View the transcript after the jump:

MSNBC
Morning Joe
05/17/13
7:33 a.m. Eastern

DAVID GREGORY: But here's what else people know about Obamacare. They may not know exactly how it helps them. They do know this: if they're employed, if they’re a salaried employee, and they get their pay stubs...when they get their paycheck on Fridays, what do they see is a new line item. And it's called the Medicare surtax. And it's a lot of money. It's new taxes that we are paying to fund Obamacare across the board. You may not know how it helps you but you know what it's taking away from you.

(...)

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let me say Vern, quickly. I want to follow up on that point, because we have a lot of people in Washington talking about Obamacare, a lot of people in Manhattan talking about Obamacare. I don't know what they're saying on the subways about this, Donny, we were talking about what they were saying on the subways. I can tell you what they're saying, though, small business owners across Pensacola, northwest Florida, middle America, Iowa: they're saying this is going to cost my small business a lot of money.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Not small businesses...

SCARBOROUGH: And the regulations are going to be high. And we're going to have to also cut some of my best employees to below 30 hours or else I can't afford to stay in business. This – and this is all going to hit, Vern, in 2014.

CONGRESSMAN VERN BUCHANAN: Yeah. I think a lot of people when they hire an employee, this is the thing that gets missed. Twenty years ago you hired an employee, paid him $50,000, there was a 22 percent cost – additional costs in hiring that employee in terms of benefits. Today it's 42 to 44 percent someone was telling me the other day. At the heart of that is the whole thing on health care. I get questions all the time where someone has 72 employees, they say “I'm going to have to cut back to under 50.” So there's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of angst out there, and just the cost of health care in general is completely and totally out of control for anybody in small business. It's not unusual for someone to say they're paying $2,000 a month for their family of four for health care today.

GREGORY: Costs just keep going up.

AL SHARPTON: But there is certainty for people that had preexisting conditions and couldn't get insurance that are now insured.

BRZEZINSKI: Exactly. Young people.

SHARPTON: There is certainty for young people that are now covered that would not have been covered.

BRZEZINSKI: There's preventative care now.

SHARPTON: Preventative care. There's certainty in a lot of areas that people were left out. And a lot of small businesses have come forward and supported Obamacare. I think that – I understand the Republicans’objection. They lost it. And I think that –

SCARBOROUGH: I'm not just talking about Republicans. I'm talking about – you know, I don't know if you know...I know that Democrats own small businesses too.

SHARPTON: They do.

SCARBOROUGH: Democrats are concerned about this as well.

SHARPTON: And many of those small businesses supported Obamacare for some of the reasons I named and other reasons. And I think that it is very important that we understand that a lot of Americans want to see all Americans in a position to be insured that were not insured before we had this legislation.

BRZEZINSKI: Anybody at this table not think, or on the panel not think, that Americans should have access to health care? All of them?

DONNY DEUTSCH: David's point – the argument becomes very simple for the Republicans, it costs more money.

SAM STEIN: David's point – hold on, there is a surtax issue that everyone is going to feel. But that surtax, that money goes to subsidize people's health care. While people will feel a tax issue a lot of other people are going to feel the money in their pocket to buy health care.

GREGORY: The question is though, do you trust the government to administer the program?

SCARBOROUGH: Yes, do you trust the government to administer the program? And that's come out this past week. And also, those people may have more money in their pockets but if their small businesses shut down or they have to get rid of them because they have to cut below 50 employees, then suddenly it ends up hurting them more than helping them. It's a terrible balancing act and I think it's going to be following the White House throughout 2014. And they're going to have to make some adjustments on the fly.

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TSA delays allowing small knives on planes

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has indefinitely delayed its proposal to allow travelers to carry small knives on airplanes after severe blowback from lawmakers, air marshals and law enforcement officials.

In a statement released Monday, the TSA said the decision to begin allowing knives with blades shorter than 2.36 inches would not move forward on April 25 as planned “in order to accommodate further input from the Aviation Security Advisory Committee.”

“This timing will enable TSA to incorporate the feedback about the changes to the Prohibited Items List and continue workforce training,” the TSA said in the statement.

The move comes one week after two bombs were set off at the Boston Marathon finish line, killing three and wounding dozens and refocusing the nation’s attention on terrorism and national security.

Knives of any length have not been allowed on flights since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when hijackers used box-cutting blades to take over four U.S. flights. 

The TSA announced earlier this year it would begin allowing short blades back on flights as part of a “risk-based” security initiative that would allow screeners to spend more time looking for higher impact devices, like bombs.

While the risk-based security initiatives have support, the decision to allow small knives back on planes was soundly criticized from many corners, including Congress, where 133 House members signed a letter to TSA Administrator John Pistole, asking him to keep small knives on the agency’s prohibited list. 

Lawmakers had introduced legislation to force the TSA to reverse course on the new policy, with Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) proposing the No Knives Act, and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) presenting a similar measure in the Senate.

Monday's announcement was cheered by lawmakers.

“By delaying this policy, the TSA is taking a solid, common sense step in the direction of safer skies. This delay acknowledges that permitting knives on planes is a bad idea; now the TSA should go the rest of the way and end this flawed policy all together,” said Schumer in a statement.

The New York senator urged the TSA to drop the plan to allow knives onto airplanes completely. 

“Anything less than a full reversal will be unsatisfactory for passengers and the hard working flight attendants, pilots, and air marshals who keep our planes safe every day,” he said.

A flight attendants’ union, which had strongly opposed the decision, hailed the TSA’s move, but also pushed for the agency to drop the plan completely.

“Knives were the terrorists' weapons of choice in bringing down four jetliners and murdering thousands of Americans. All knives should be banned from planes permanently,” The Association of Professional Flight Attendants said in a statement.

This story was last updated at 8:10 a.m. 

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Untold Story of Small Biz Delay under ACA, Just Déjà Vu from Massachusetts

The revelation that the Obama Administration will delay the roll out of the “choice option” for small

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has been credited with advocating for small business employee choice in the ACA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

business until 2015 came as a huge surprise to many, including Joe Klein at Time, however anyone familiar with the Massachusetts experiment will feel a strong sense of déjà vu. In a 2010 paper I authored for the Heritage Foundation, I documented the delayed and failed effort by the Massachusetts public exchange (Connector) to offer real choice and savings to small businesses. My report suggested the experience served as a warning to other states. I suppose I should have targeted  it toward the federal government instead. Small companies should be even more uncertain of the law now that the cost–saving mechanism they were sold is now on the back burner. Yet the penalties for not offering insurance, new taxes on fully-insured plans, and EHB requirements all remain on schedule.

Background from Massachusetts

Governor Romney’s orig­inal health reform proposal envisioned a statewide health insurance exchange that would have offered small businesses a robust choice of plans with a wide range of deductible and benefit levels. His proposal provided for defined contributions from employers, used the exchange as a “premium aggre­gator,” and created a pooling mechanism to allow employees of small businesses to purchase group insurance together to spread risk and provide greater premium stability.

His plan would have helped elevate the individual employee as the primary decision-maker and inject some competition into the system. Even with the policy compromises required to pass the health care reform bill in 2006, the final version still included mechanisms that would have helped small business in the short term—if they had been implemented.

This same rationale was used to garner Democratic support for the ACA in Congress, as Robert Pear from The New York Times documented in his recent article on the delay:

In the weeks leading up to the passage of the health care legislation in 2010, [Senator Mary] Landrieu provided crucial support for the measure, after securing changes to help small businesses.

One problem: The Massachusetts reality didn’t match the rhetoric at the time, and should raise serious questions about the federal experience even after the employee plan choice is launched in 2015, 2016, or 2020.

Massachusetts Vision Altered During Implementation

The 2006 health care reform law tasked the Massachusetts Connector with developing a small business program. The original launch date was July 1, 2007, but coverage was not finalized until January 2009, almost three full years after the health care reform bill was signed. Even with this lengthy delay, the original Contributory Plan (CP), suffered from design and incentive issues. The CP was the Connector’s first pilot program marketed to small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. In this scenario, a company would select a benchmark plan within a benefit-level tier (gold, silver, or bronze), and then the employee would choose a plan within that tier.

Instead of engaging with a broker community that is geared to small businesses options, the Connector allowed only 20 brokers to sell CP and only to the companies that were already their clients. The Co­nector offered these brokers a 2.5 percent fee, compared to the 4 percent standard commission that they could earn outside of the Connector. (Congress decided to go around brokers in the ACA and hire navigators, and HHS invented “assisters” to fill this role instead.)

The health insurance products offered through the Connector lacked creativity, because the governing board voted to over-standardize plan designs. As a result, the products looked similar to those available outside the Connector and often more expensive.

Not surprisingly, the program drew limited interest from the small business community and failed to draw its initial goal of 100 employers out of the 185,000 in the state. As a result, the Connector launched a new small business program called Business Express (BE) in order to put “its resources into one effort for small businesses,” and froze enrollment for CP.

BE had a grand total of seven plans, and enrollment was largely boosted through a deal with a third-party administrator, the Small Business Service Bureau, to transfer members into the Connector. That contract has since ended.

Small Businesses in Massachusetts Have Voted With Their Feet

After six years, millions of dollars in advertising, hundreds of free media stories on the Connector, and a controversial mailing to all small businesses in the state, the numbers speak for themselves.

 Success of a Public Exchange?

 How Employee Choice Was Added to the ACA

The untold story about employee choice and the ACA revolves around Jon Kingsdale, former executive director of the Connector, who was responsible for implementing the first contributory plan in Massachusetts. Yet after failing to launch a successful program, he traveled to DC to lobby Congressional Democrats and Obama Administration officials to include the same type of program in the ACA.

The media doesn’t understand the full history of this program, so we are left with Jon Gruber from MIT telling a reporter from the National Journal recently, “The main message, I think, is optimistic. Overall it’s [exchanges] going to work, and over time it’s going to work out…” I guess he is still holding out hope for things to turn around in the Connector as a Board member, six years into the experiment.

The open question is whether the federal and state run exchanges can learn from the experience in the Commonwealth.

My advice is to promote defined contributions through the exchange, set up premium aggregators, allow for any willing insurer to sell in the exchange, reduce the number of mandates, and focus on allowing market forces to control underlying health care costs. Finally, if the goal is truly to expand access to insurance, not just retain government control, a paradigm-changing reform should allow for premium tax credits to be utilized in private exchanges. This will test the true value proposition of a public exchange. If they add value they should survive, if not, they should go out of business and not be propped up by government favoritism.

Find me on Twitter: @josharchambault

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Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year

Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year - The Daily Beast var _sf_startpt = (new Date()).getTime(); Follow @thedailybeast TUMBLR Home Politics Business Video Entertainment Fashion Books Art Women in the World Newsweek Featured: WITW Summit Travel The Royalist Howard Kurtz David Frum Newsweek Subscriber Help Content Section Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year by Megan McArdle Apr 3, 2013 12:37 PM EDT It's easier to describe a system than to implement it.

Where was the contingency plan?

That's what Joe Klein asks upon learning that Obamacare's health care exchanges, a sort of government-run insurance supermarket, are going to delay implementation of most of functionality that was supposed to be available for small businesses.  Instead of a choice of offerings, in many areas, they'll basically have one.  This is worse, not better, than the current markets.

Sure, the administration was surprised when so many states declined to operate their own exchanges, forcing the federal government to step in.  But the administration doesn't seem to have prepared for that possibility, even though it was an obvious threat by last year.  Instead, they held open the deadline for states to declare, making themselves even later.  

This is the danger of a Rube Goldberg Policy Machine: a very large, complex piece of legislation with lots of parts that all have to work together perfectly in order to make the whole thing run.  If you've misunderstood the mechanics--if, for example, you thought that premiums were going to decrease, rather than increase, under the new law--then there's a huge danger that this massive apparatus will suffer an irreparable breakdown.  The risk increases if you passed the law over the vociferous objections of a minority party whose cooperation you now need to fix it, especially if you said things like "elections have consequences".

I don't get the sense that at the time of passage, people had spent a lot of time thinking about the sheer mechanics of how this would all work: how the IT would be built, the rules written, the necessary information assembled.  They spent a lot of time staring at the blueprints, not so much thinking about the building materials and the labor.  

The result is delays like this.  Presumably the small business policies are a bit of triage--cut so that they could focus on the part of the exchanges that serves individual consumers.  But the fact that they're having to cut this out, and at this late date, raises concerns about what the individual exchanges are going to look like.  Does the administration have a contingency plan if those aren't ready, either?

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Megan McArdle is a special correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast covering business, economics, and public policy. A former senior editor at The Atlantic and writer for The Economist, Megan has a diverse work history including three small startups and a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

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Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year

Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year - The Daily Beast var _sf_startpt = (new Date()).getTime(); Follow @thedailybeast TUMBLR Home Politics Business Video Entertainment Fashion Books Art Women in the World Newsweek Featured: WITW Summit Travel The Royalist Howard Kurtz David Frum Newsweek Subscriber Help Content Section Obamacare Won't Be Doing Much for Small Business Next Year by Megan McArdle Apr 3, 2013 12:37 PM EDT It's easier to describe a system than to implement it.

Where was the contingency plan?

That's what Joe Klein asks upon learning that Obamacare's health care exchanges, a sort of government-run insurance supermarket, are going to delay implementation of most of functionality that was supposed to be available for small businesses.  Instead of a choice of offerings, in many areas, they'll basically have one.  This is worse, not better, than the current markets.

Sure, the administration was surprised when so many states declined to operate their own exchanges, forcing the federal government to step in.  But the administration doesn't seem to have prepared for that possibility, even though it was an obvious threat by last year.  Instead, they held open the deadline for states to declare, making themselves even later.  

This is the danger of a Rube Goldberg Policy Machine: a very large, complex piece of legislation with lots of parts that all have to work together perfectly in order to make the whole thing run.  If you've misunderstood the mechanics--if, for example, you thought that premiums were going to decrease, rather than increase, under the new law--then there's a huge danger that this massive apparatus will suffer an irreparable breakdown.  The risk increases if you passed the law over the vociferous objections of a minority party whose cooperation you now need to fix it, especially if you said things like "elections have consequences".

I don't get the sense that at the time of passage, people had spent a lot of time thinking about the sheer mechanics of how this would all work: how the IT would be built, the rules written, the necessary information assembled.  They spent a lot of time staring at the blueprints, not so much thinking about the building materials and the labor.  

The result is delays like this.  Presumably the small business policies are a bit of triage--cut so that they could focus on the part of the exchanges that serves individual consumers.  But the fact that they're having to cut this out, and at this late date, raises concerns about what the individual exchanges are going to look like.  Does the administration have a contingency plan if those aren't ready, either?

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Megan McArdle is a special correspondent for Newsweek and The Daily Beast covering business, economics, and public policy. A former senior editor at The Atlantic and writer for The Economist, Megan has a diverse work history including three small startups and a disaster recovery firm at Ground Zero.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

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For Small Biz, Health Care Top Concern: Survey

 Highlight transcript below to create clipTranscript:  Print  |  Email Go  Click text to jump within videoFri 05 Apr 13 | 07:15 PM ET Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute president reveals the results of a new survey from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that indicates health care reform is the top economic concern for small businesses. Rana Foroohar, Time Magazine; Jim Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute; and Matt Swift, Legacy Management Group CEO, weigh in.

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Health-Care Law Uncertainty Grips Old Town Alexandria Cafe — And Other Small Businesses

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Going Out Guide | Lavanya RamanathanJobsIn Jobs#header-v3 #main-nav li.realestate{display:none;}#header-v3 #main-nav li a.top, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.top:link, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.top:visited, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.top:hover {font-size:13px;padding: 0 4px 0 5px !important;}#header-v3 #main-nav li a.home, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.home:link, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.home:visited, #header-v3 #main-nav li a.home:hover {padding: 0px !important;}#header-v3 #main-nav li.politics {border-left:none;}#header-v3 #main-nav li.classifieds {border-right:none;}#header-v3 #main-nav-wrapper-v2 .classifieds .rollMe {right:-1px;height:140px;width:260px;}#header-v3 #main-nav li.politics:hover {-moz-box-shadow: none;-webkit-box-shadow: none;box-shadow: none;}MoreClassifiedsCarsDealsReal EstateRentalsPhotosShoppingObituariesArchivesTopicsBlogsOn Small Business In the NewsNCAA scores Quantico shootings Chinua Achebe dies BlackBerry Z10 Yoga pants body .ui-menu-item { margin: 4px 0; text-align: left; text-indent: 10px;}body .ui-autocomplete.ui-widget-content{ border-top: medium none; border-top-left-radius: 0; border-top-right-radius: 0; display: block; left: 154px; position: absolute; width: 199px; z-index: 1;}body .ui-widget-content a { background-image: none !important; border: medium none !important; border-radius: 0 0 0 0; color: #222222; cursor: pointer; display: block; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%;}.search input{ width: 200px;}???initialComments:true! pubdate:03/20/2013 21:08 EDT! commentPeriod:14! commentEndDate:4/3/13 9:8 EDT! currentDate:3/21/13 8:0 EDT! allowComments:true! displayComments:true!Health-care law uncertainty grips Old Town Alexandria cafe — and other small businesses

(Evy Mages/ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST ) - Jody Manor wants to open a second location of Bittersweet Catering, Cafe and Bakery, but health care costs could derail those plans.

CAPTIONFULLSCREEN By J.D. Harrison, Mar 21, 2013 01:08 AM EDT

The Washington Post

Jody Manor has run a small cafe and catering company for nearly three decades in Old Town Alexandria, only a few blocks from where he was born. Six years ago he purchased an adjoining building, and more recently he started searching for a second location.

Whether he moves forward with expansion depends on the price tag of the requirements mandated by the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature health-care initiative.

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Manor’s company employs 45 people. If he brings in just five more, his business would soon be subject to new minimum coverage standards under the 2010 law — and he does not know whether his current health plan would meet this threshold of coverage or how his premiums might be affected.

“These changes are less than a year away, and I still have no information about how much our premiums are going to cost,” said Manor, owner of Bittersweet Catering, Cafe and Bakery. “It definitely gives me pause when thinking about adding another location.”

Nearly three years after the health-care law was passed, federal regulators have only recently begun to define its terms. Major pieces of the overhaul, such as state-run exchanges that will serve as marketplaces for qualified health insurance plans, have yet to take shape, and several rules remain unwritten. Consequently, the picture remains anything but clear for small-business owners, some of whom have been warned that their premiums may spike and that their current coverage may fall short.

“There is tremendous confusion and fear among many of my competitors and other business owners in my network, particularly about what you have to cover and how you have to report,” said Hugh Joyce, owner of James River Air Conditioning in Richmond. “In speaking to them, I am convinced that the primary reason we aren’t seeing a robust economic recovery is the uncertainty and costs associated with this health-care law.”

Others are not so critical. They argue that the measures promise to rein in soaring health-care costs and provide a safety net to small businesses and employees, many of whom would be able to buy insurance through the exchanges.

The Department of Health and Human Services three weeks ago issued a final set of regulations on the minimum value for health insurance packages, mandating that plans cover at least 60 percent of health expenses and 10 primary areas of care, including maternity, ambulance and prescription services.

Joyce, whose company employs 150 people, provides what his insurers tell him will “probably qualify” as adequate coverage under the new rules, but he isn’t certain.

If his current plan falls short, experts say he won’t be alone in deciding whether to find a suitable alternative or pay a penalty.

The minimum-benefit plan mandated by the law “is broader than what’s currently offered by a lot of small businesses,” said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for providers.

Zirkelbach warned that even firms that already offer sufficient coverage may see their premiums surge under the health-care law. New rules that restrict how insurers can structure their rates could drive prices higher across the board, he said, while small firms could be hit indirectly by a new fee on insurance providers, which some fear will be passed along to individuals and small employers in the form of higher premiums.

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