Small Business Medical Insurance Benefits From Healthcare Reform

Because of tax credits aimed to offset medical insurance premiums for small businesses , small businesses may be among the first of groups that will benefit from healthcare reform.

Right now, there's about an 18% difference in the cost of medical insurance for large companies compared to small companies.  Individual state health benefits exchanges promise to help decrease administrative costs and widen the risk pool over many people.

There are nearly 16.6 million Americans that work for employers that would be able to receive the tax credit beginning this year through the year 2013.  Over the next decade, small employers could get about $40 million in federal aid via the federal credit program.

Small employers have historically always struggled with obtaining affordable medical insurance.  The reason for this is because compared to large employers, small employers have higher administrative costs, larger costs per employee to offer medical coverage, and medical underwriting in numerous states that leads to higher premiums for older, sicker, or women dominated workplaces.

Because of these reasons, less than 50% of employees in companies with less than 50 workers have sufficient medical insurance, compared to more than 70% of workers employed by large employers.