Healthcare expenses for small companies

Like most of my clients, I am an owner of a small business burdened with ever-rising healthcare expenses (it's brutal). Forbes has an article about what some small businesses are doing about their healthcare costs which highlights the struggles/trade-offs being made.

Having spent considerable time working in the healthcare field (primarily on the business/technology side), I've seen first-hand the idiosyncrasies and inefficiencies of our healthcare system every year that spends over $300B (yes, billion) on administrative costs alone. It's one of several factors that pushes corporations towards offshoring and outsourcing since the cost of having an employee is very high particularly when factoring in healthcare.

Being an optimist by nature, I think that corporations are going to force reform on the healthcare system that will eventually reduce costs. More controversially, I think you'll see corporations be more invasive with their employees when it comes to life-style choices. I've already read stories of smokers being denied employment. With the growing obesity problem, I wouldn't be surprised to see something like body-mass-index being a hiring factor since there's a direct correlation between weight problems and healthcare expenditures.