Employer-provided health insurance continues to be the top concern for business owners in New Jersey and the nation, according to a survey published Wednesday by United Benefits Advisors.
According to the study, which surveyed 1,280 employers across the country, 99.4 percent of respondents are concerned with the impact of health care costs on their overall corporate costs, with more than 50 percent calling it a critical concern.
But the study also found 96.9 percent of responders believe their health care programs attract good employees, with a majority of those employers saying benefits also help with retention.
Employers Association of New Jersey President John Sarno said using health benefits as a recruiting tool depends on the size and type of company, saying that’s mainly useful for companies competing over high-end talent.
“But that’s not the average Jersey employer,” Sarno said. “The average Jersey employer is not having a recruiting problem right now. (Benefits are) viewed as a legacy cost, and if they could get out, they would get out. Premiums are undermining the businesses from competing and being successful.”
Sarno said the costs of health care are of most concern to the state’s 240,000 small businesses, which employ roughly 1.2 million people and are being priced out of providing health insurance for their employees. Premiums have become “crushing” for small employers; because of that, small employers have been dropping insurance, which raises the cost for remaining employer-provided coverage by diminishing the pool of insured workers.
Sarno added that government intervention into solving the health insurance issue is not making any progress, coinciding with UBA’s study, in which one in six said they favor a federally funded universal health care system.
“The dialogue is mired in toxic politics, that’s part of the problem,” Sarno said. “Government funded health care — no one is proposing that. But that’s the misperception of what’s happening. Somehow, the solution of health care has been made into a political wedge issue, and there’s a false choice between government-run health care and totally private health care, so the political discussion is useless right now to finding a solution.”
