As described in the course syllabus, this assignment involves your surveying the businesses you most often patronize regarding the health benefits offered to employees. In order to keep this assignment within bounds, I am setting the expectation at 5 such interviews. Here are the guidelines:

1. Remind yourself that you are a valued customer of the business, and that the way employees of the business are treated and compensated is a legitimate criterion for patronage.

2. Ask to speak the manager, owner, or someone clearly in a supervisory position. Line staff should not be put in the position of responding to customer inquiries on health benefits.

3. Explain that your questions are part of a class project aimed at helping you understand how employees may or not have health insurance benefits as a benefit of their employment, as well the constraints, barriers and incentives from the employer’s perspective. If you feel like adding that this information is important to you as a customer, by all means do so.

4. Avoid an approach that is demanding or confrontational, assume that most employers care about the well being of their employees.

5. Explain that the information will be summarized, and that your paper will not mention the name of any person or business.

6. Questions to Ask:

1. Does your business provide health insurance coverage for your employees?

2. If not, what are the most important reasons?

3. If so:

a. How does an employee qualify for benefits?

b. Can you estimate what percent of your employees qualify?

b. How much does health insurance cost you as the employer and how much does it cost the employee? (e.g. average monthly cost, you are only looking for a general estimate).

c. In general terms, what does it cover?

d. Has the nature of the coverage and costs changed much in the last two years?

e. Do you expect it to change over the next few years?

5. Do you think the employer based system of health care insurance continues to be a good idea? If not, how would you change the way health care insurance is provided?

After completing your interviews, I would like the survey results summed up in a paragraph for each employer that cites some general characteristics of the business (e.g. size, type of ownership, demographic composition of labor force) and the main facts learned. Following that, I would like you to use the information you have collected to identify the major policy implications of your observations and conclusions. All parts of this assignment should not exceed 10-12 pages. As mentioned in the syllabus, the due date is December 15th.