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The cost of health care is on the rise and fewer micro-businesses owners are offering coverage to their employees. A survey of nearly 4,000 micro-businesses found that 18.6% of the respondents said their health care plans are covering full-time employees this year. That number is down from 46.2% in 2005. A micro-business has 10 or fewer em Read More

Who should get health insurance, how should they get it, and who pays? Those three questions are at the forefront of the current controversy over health care and will provide the framework for the great debate that will begin once the presidential primaries end and the general election begins. Small business owners, of course, have a huge stak Read More

Ya got me on this one - who knew I could bundle my worker's comp with my medical benefits and potentially save on both? In one company I'm working with, we just changed insurance providers for our group health benefits as our old provider wanted to increase premiums 20%. Once that was done, our new broker made us aware that Blue Cross coul Read More

If there is one thing that separates the self-employed from those employed by others, it is their preoccupation with health insurance. Many entrepreneurs seem to find health insurance after doing a lot of research, though they generally pay more than they think they should. Some who are in good health bet on remaining that way and forgo health Read More

Lawmakers in Washington have dithered and debated while the health insurance crisis has grown increasingly worse. At last count, skyrocketing costs have forced 47 million Americans to forego insurance and put their health at risk. The majority of those work in small businesses. At the state level, however, a number of progressive governors, have ta Read More

Many small business owners don't offer retirement plans, wary of the costs. But they can be worthwhile investments that help attract and retain employees, while offering tax benefits for companies.

Fees have come down in recent years, the result of increased competition among retirement plan management companies. Business owners should also kee Read More

An owner looks for a starting point on finding a retirement plan for her workers. "I would like a 401(k) for my small business but there are so many, and I don't know who to trust." But is a 401(k) really what you need? "So often people make the term 401(k) synonymous with 'retirement plan,'" says Gene Fairbrother, lead small busin Read More

Health insurance has always been pricey for small and midsize businesses. But after years of extracting hefty increases from smaller corporate customers, some insurers are showing more flexibility. Why? With the overall market for health insurance flat, carriers are battling to steal market share from one another. "There's a price war going on n Read More