High premium prices limit access for some employees

Deborah Maguire, Liam Maguire's Irish Pub and Restaurant in Falmouth
Fifteen years ago, it cost Deborah Maguire $1,500 a year to pay for an employee's individual health insurance policy. This year, that amount of money wouldn't even cover the deductible on her plan.

Maguire owns Liam Maguire's Irish Pub and Restaurant in Falmouth. In testimony to the Division of Insurance in March, Maguire talked about the increases she and her employees have had to deal with in health insurance.

In 1995, health insurance cost $125 a month for individual policies. Now, the company is looking at $386 a month for individual policies and $986 a month for families. There are $2,000 and $4,000 deductibles on the plan.

Like many other small-business owners, Maguire finds that many of her employees cannot afford the insurance and the deductible that comes along with it.

"I have one employee who can afford it," Maguire said in her testimony. "The health insurance just goes on and on and on, the cost of it."