More Small Businesses are Offering Health Benefits to Workers (L.A. Times)

Insurers around the country are reporting that small businesses have signed up in increasing numbers to give their workers health benefits, perhaps due to a tax credit that Obama’s federal health care law gives to businesses with fewer than 25 employees and moderate-to-low pay scales. The tax credit is one of the first elements of the health care plan to be initiated, and could, it seems, be a game-changer for insurers. For example, United HealthGroup Inc., the nation’s largest insurer, reported that it added 75,000 new companies with fewer than 50 employees in the first six months after the law was signed — a “notable” increase, it said.