Most Massachusetts businesses believe that they have a responsibility to help provide health benefits to their workers, support “play-or-pay” provisions of the state’s landmark 2006 health care reform legislation, and even believe that the play-or-pay requirements should apply to firms with 10 or fewer workers, which they currently do not. Moreover, small employers in the state are not planning to restrict or end coverage in response to the recent reforms, according to survey results reported Nov. 14 in a Health Affairs web exclusive.
The research was based on a survey of employee benefit managers at 1,056 randomly selected public and private Massachusetts firms. The survey was conducted from February through June 2007, before any of the Massachusetts legislative provisions affecting employers went into effect, and is intended to serve as a baseline against which future research can measure the impact of the reforms. In addition to questions about businesses’ attitudes toward and knowledge of the reforms, the survey included questions about the benefits offered by Massachusetts employers and the premiums faced by these firms. A follow-up survey will be conducted in 2008.
The survey found broad support among Massachusetts businesses both for the concept of employer responsibility for health benefits and for the specific provisions of the Massachusetts reforms. Seventy-seven percent of employers in the state either “strongly” (34 percent) or “somewhat” (43 percent) agreed with the statement that “all employers bear some responsibility for providing health benefits to their workers.” However, the survey found one worrisome sign for reform efforts: At the time the survey was done, small firms had a surprisingly low level of knowledge about the 2006 legislation. Among firms with three to 10 workers, only 14 percent of respondents said that they understood the reform plan “very well,” and 35 percent understood it “somewhat well.” Overall, though, the NORC researchers say that their survey results paint an encouraging picture of the initial stages of reform in Massachusetts: “Early results are encouraging, with no serious signs of crowd-out and employers seemingly comfortable with the objectives and spirit of reform. Stay tuned for forthcoming results.”
