Employer Perspectives on the Health Insurance Market: A Survey of Businesses in the United States, 2014

This survey investigated health insurance benefits offered by private-sector employers as key components of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) were implemented. The employers were interviewed about the types of health benefits they offered to employees and dependents, reasons for offering health insurance, and key considerations when choosing health insurance plans with an emphasis on sources of information used to evaluate health insurance plan quality. Additional topics covered by the survey include the use of brokers to assist in choosing health insurance plans, changes in insurance carriers or decisions to offer additional plans with a new insurance carrier, and how employers planned to react to the ACA requirement that employers with 50 or more full-time employees offer coverage to at least 70 percent of full-time employees or face financial penalties.