If mid-sized companies are feeling the financial strain of ever-increasing group health insurance, what chance is there for small business owners to offer any kind of health insurance to their employees?

This very question was examined by the Wall Street Journal (Jan 29, 2008). They took an example of a Michigan small business with 15 workers which came up with its own creative solution - offering allowances to employees who buy their own individual health insurance coverage. The article indicates this move is being favored by other small businesses. It includes an interview with the co-founder of a San Francisco company using new technology to provide funding towards employees' own personal health insurance packages.

Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has a Health Insurance Exchange Program on the table, which, as reported in Jackson's Clarion Ledger (Feb 4 2008), would benefit 50,000 small business employees in the state.

A more radical bill being put forward in Georgia includes a special provision just for sole proprietors — small business owners who run their companies by themselves with no other employees — and perhaps most interestingly, would require health insurers to justify raising their prices. (Albany Herald, Jan 23, 2008)

In 2007 only 59% of small businesses offered health benefits, down from 68% in 2000. Based on the current trend, private insurance may soon outpace group coverage in small businesses requiring an ever-increasing number of small business employees to buy their own individual health insurance.