The first is price. The second reason is information. Small firms have heard from their spouses, friends and associates employed in larger firms that the plans are acceptable to workers. The small firms then offered managed care themselves. The study suggests that managed care is no longer a large firm phenomenon.
Large employers remain key to the development of managed care in a community.
However, once large employers begin to offer coverage, small firms follow. The analysis was based upon surveys of over 600 small employers in 1993 and 1995, and funded by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.