Health insurance provision and labor contracts for small firms

Healthcare reform in the USA requires all Americans to buy health insurance and businesses above a certain size to offer healthcare coverage to their employees by 2014. Understanding why some entrepreneurs do not provide employer-based health insurance is important and might help to solve future health insurance problems. Using two unique features which have not yet been discussed in the literature, namely, efficiency–wage theory and a compensation package of monetary wage and health insurance coverage, we provide here a theoretical foundation to why small firms are less likely to offer health insurance and are more likely to have employees with only a weak preference for acquiring health insurance. To reach the goal of health insurance coverage for all, one feasible solution is to allow small firms or individuals to pool together and pay a lower insurance premium.