Tom Jacobs, J.D., MBA
The employer-sponsored healthcare benefit is somewhat unique to the United States. It proliferated during the Great Depression when President Roosevelt imposed a wage freeze on American companies. Private-sector companies responded by offering group healthcare benefits as a means of additional compensation.
By 2008, more than 60 percent of small to medium-sized employers offered this benefit, but that number decreased somewhat with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010. In 2016, however, the number of employers offering the benefit had again started to increase. That trend is continuing, due to the factors of diminishing unemployment and lower premium increases over the past few years. As a result, new hires and current employees expect more comprehensive benefits packages, even those in small to medium-sized firms that lie in the PEO target market...