{"id":1810,"date":"2009-02-01T20:13:47","date_gmt":"2009-02-02T01:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthnews.nchealthplans.com\/?p=1810"},"modified":"2010-06-23T20:47:39","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T01:47:39","slug":"small-businesses-and-health-insurance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/2009\/02\/small-businesses-and-health-insurance\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Businesses and Health Insurance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">SMALL BUSINESSES, BIG RISKS<br \>\nThere\u2019s a direct correlation between an employer\u2019s size and the likelihood that the firm will provide <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/compare_plans\/\" target=\"_blank\">health benefits<\/a> to its employees. The smaller the company, the less likely it is to provide coverage \u2013 a reality that impacts all demographics.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s a particular problem for North Carolina, because small businesses are increasingly the engine behind the state\u2019s economy: 98 percent of businesses in North Carolina are small businesses,* and more than half of them don\u2019t offer health insurance.** It\u2019s hard for small businesses to qualify for rates as low as those available for large firms, particularly if some of their workforce is in poor health.<br \>\nAbout half of the uninsured in North Carolina (55.3 percent) work for a small firm or belong to a family where someone works for a small firm (fewer than 25 employees).***<\/p>\n<p>For more information on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/group_quotes\/\" target=\"_blank\">health insurance coverage in North Carolina<\/a>, please visit our website at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\">www.nchealthplans.com<\/a> or call our toll free number 888-765-5400 and speak with one of our qualified agents.\u00a0 Our agency provides coverage for health insurance in North Carolina through <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\" target=\"_blank\">Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina\u00a0(BCBSNC). <\/a>You may qualify for a 15% healthy lifestyle discount if you are in excellent health.\u00a0 Call us for details.<\/p>\n<p>United States Small Business Administration. http:\/\/www.sba.gov\/advo\/research\/profiles\/06nc.pdf<br \>\nFifty-nine percent of North Carolina businesses don\u2019t offer health benefits. Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts. 2002.<br \>\n\u201cNorth Carolina\u2019s Uninsured.\u201d North Carolina Medical Journal. May\/June 2006.BCBSNC, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, Small Businesses and Health Insurance, Health Benefits<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SMALL BUSINESSES, BIG RISKS There\u2019s a direct correlation between an employer\u2019s size and the likelihood that the firm will provide health benefits to its employees. The smaller the company, the less likely it is to provide coverage \u2013 a reality that impacts all demographics. That\u2019s a particular problem for North Carolina, because small businesses are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,48],"tags":[23,136,362,210],"class_list":["post-1810","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bcbsnc-insurance","category-group-health-insurance","tag-bcbsnc","tag-blue-cross-blue-shield-of-north-carolina","tag-health-benefits","tag-small-businesses-and-health-insurance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1810"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1843,"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1810\/revisions\/1843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1810"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1810"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nchealthplans.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1810"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}