Conducting a Business Research
RES/351
February 10, 2014
Professor

Examination of Problem and Purpose

T&W Operations is an information technology and logistics company searching for the most cost effective way to providing insurance coverage to 75 new and current fulltime employees as mandated by the Affordable Care Act. This act requires businesses to provide all fulltime employees health insurance meaning an increase in company costs to organizations like T&W Operations Inc. To concur with a large number of new customer proposals, T&W is now hiring 100 new employees, 50 of them being fulltime associates, equaling a total of 150 individuals, 75 fulltime and 75 part time employees. The company must find the most cost effective insurance plan to provide too all 75 new and current fulltime employees health insurance to abide by the Affordable Care Act requirements.

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T&W’s Insurance Costs Increase: The Significance and Solution
This significance of the solution is huge because if T&W Operations does not provide affordable health coverage to 75 fulltime associates, the company will pay a tax penalty of $2000 a person minus the first 30 employees, meaning T&W will owe $90,000 annually to the remaining 45 employees who did not receive insurance for a particular time period. According to the online forum www.obamacarefacts.com, “ The Obama Care "employer mandate" is a requirement that all businesses with over 50 full-time equivalent (FTE) employees provide health insurance for their full-time employees, or pay a per month "Employer Shared Responsibility Payment" on their federal tax return.” The purpose of this research is to conclude how T&W Operations will afford health care to new and existing employees without incurring an extreme rise in insurance costs. To begin with, our team must consult with T&W’s human resource department requesting permission to carrying out this experiment. Following this approval by T&W’s HR department, we will continue our research to find the significance and solution of T&W obtaining insurance coverage through a private exchange consulting firm.

Preparing Research Question, Hypothesis and Variables
First our team must refer to the steps of the Scientific Method to begin working on our problem. The scientific method requires a clearly definable purpose for the research we are conducting. For this investigation, we are researching how T&W will provide affordable health insurance to 75 fulltime employees to avoid paying an annual penalty of 90,000. Our research must express a clear connection of data collection and variable outcomes. Using the research question, “How does T&W Operations Inc., plan to provide benefits to a total of 75 current and new fulltime employees taking into account the costs associated with rising insurance benefits and the ACA requirements?” The hypothesis for this research problem is “The hiring of 100 new employees, 50 working full time means T&W Operations is now responsible for providing insurance to a total of 75 new and current fulltime workers to comply with ACA requirements.” The independent variable in this hypothesis is the number of new employees hired and the dependent variable is the amount of insurance costs to the company.

Type of Research: Qualitative Purposive Sampling Method Our team has chosen qualitative research using a purposive sampling method to recognize and interpret how T&W Operations will provide affordable health insurance to 75 fulltime employees. For this study our team is gathering data from online focus groups discussing various health care plans available to businesses like T&W Operations with 75 or more fulltime employees. After obtaining the research questions, our team is performing quantitative research meaning the hypothesis will predict what will occur, and includes data that’s measurable in the process.

Research Design: Non-Probability Purposive

The type of study our team is conducting is a non-probability purposive sampling of online questionnaires getting employers input on the benefits of choosing private insurance programs to control health care costs required by The Affordable Care Act. “Researchers choose participants arbitrarily for their unique characteristics or their experiences, attitudes, or perceptions; as conceptual or theoretical categories of participants develop during the interviewing process, researchers seek new participants to challenge emerging patterns” (Cooper & Schindler, p. 723.) Although this type of research is not as specific detail oriented as quantitative research, the interviewer must be able to use his or her skill to extract the desirable research conclusions..

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Instrument: Surveys Non-purposive Sampling Method
The instrument our team is using to gather data for research is a non-purposive and longitudinal sampling methods by means of online and telephone surveys. The surveys we will use are express the effects of the Affordable Health Care Act to small businesses like T&W Operations and furthermore expresses options and actions taken by business owners to provide health care coverage. The questions asked in the surveys are open and closed ended questions by employer participants alike. This form of survey research ask specific questions about ACA effects on small businesses offering healthcare to fulltime employees.
Overall data analysis approach
The first survey is by E-Health Small Employer Health Insurance Survey
Expresses a large number of small employers who misunderstand the employer responsibility law and as a result shrunk to fifty six percent. “If you could achieve the same outcome, where would you prefer to shop for health insurance?” Five percent of employers prefer a government exchange, 24 percent prefer a private exchange and 71 percent desire a pro-choice option.
This research demonstrates that private and pro-choice decisions rank the highest in small business firm today. “What is the primary reason you offer health care insurance to employees? Thirty one percent claim to offer insurance to recruit talent, 44 percent do it out of moral obligation, 8 percent for worker productivity and the remaining 17 percent does so to receive tax benefits. Does the employer mandate to provide health insurance for employees have any impact on your plans to hire new employees next year? 33 percent of employers say yes and the other 67% say no. It is important to note that of the 67% who believe not to be affected by ACA, 18% of these people correctly interpreted the ACA requirements.

The second survey is a longitudinal method of phone research conducted by the NFIB Research Foundation for the purpose of getting insurance coverage information from small businesses. Here is the introduction pitch used by Mason-Dixon Research: INTRODUCTION: “Hello, my name is ____ from Mason-Dixon Research and we are Conducting a nationwide poll of small business owners and managers on issues related to the implementation of the new healthcare reform law. Do you have a few minutes to participate? Great! Not including yourself, approximately how many full-time employees working 30 hours or more a week, do you currently have working for you? 33 percent of businesses owners claim to have no fulltime employees, 53 percent report 1 to 9, 3 percent of businesses employee ten or more and
11 percent are not even sure how many his or her business carries. Does your business currently offer health insurance coverage to employees? 46 percent of businesses say yes, 54 percent claim to not provide any health insurance coverage. Under which one of the following types of health plans are most of your employees covered? 26 percent of employees are covered by HMO plans, 25 percent are enrolled in High Deductible PPO, 32 percent in PPO and 5 percent have Point of Service coverage. Which best describes the health plan that covers most of your employees? 86 percent of employees are on a fully insured plan in which the business owner contracts with a private insurance plan that assumes financial liability for the costs of enrollees’ medical claims.
“Only 1 percent of employees are on A Self-Funded Plan in which you assume direct financial responsibility for the costs of enrollees’ medical claims, but have “stop-loss” coverage from an insurer to protect you against very large claims.” Research Findings Of Qualitative Survey Reports
After researching insurance rates and available options for T&W Operations, the smartest plan of action for this firm to take is finding a consulting firm that offers private exchanges that includes health benefit options for fulltime employees. “These exchanges would provide employers an opportunity to give their employees a contribution that may be used to choose from a potentially broad choice of health plans that would be managed by the exchange” (Kaiser, p.203, 2013.) The idea behind these private exchange networks is for employers to offer is a variety of health and wellness plans to gives businesses like T&W Operations a chance to structure contributions and other regulations while encouraging employees to choose more efficient health plans for single of family coverage insurance.
For instance, the average PPO plan available through certain private exchanges is as low as $83 a month with an annual cost of $999 a year and that is before the employer premium pay out. If T&W Operations uses a plan like this the most this company has to pay is 35% of the annual premium of each fulltime associate. This means T&W will pay $323 a year for each employee equaling $26,223 total premium cost for all 75 employees enrolling in a basic affordable coverage plan. The total savings T&W Operations will experience is $63,777 a year by avoiding ACA penalty costs.

Research question, hypothesis, and variables

After obtaining the research questions, our team is performing quantitative research meaning the hypothesis will predict what will occur, and includes data that’s measurable in the process. Using the research question, “How does T&W Operations Inc., plan to provide benefits to a total of 75 current and new fulltime employees in a timely manner taking into account the costs associated with the insurance benefits and the ACA requirements?” the hypothesis for this problem is “The hiring of 100 new employees, 50 working full time hours means the company will have to provide insurance to its 75 fulltime employees experiencing an increase in insurance benefits costs to comply with ACA requirements.” The independent variable in this hypothesis is the number of new employees hired and the dependent variable is the amount of insurance costs to the company. References:
Lowry, S., &Gravelle , J. G. (2013). The Affordable Care Act and Small Business: Economic Issues.
Dunkelberg, W. C., & Wade, H. (2010). NFIB Small Business Trends. National Federation of Independent Businesses survey, October
Cooper, D. R., & Schindler, P. S. (2011). Business Research Methods (11th ed.). Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook Collection database. Page 718
T&W Operations, INC. (2013). Retrieved from http://www.tnwops.com/
HHS.gov/healthcare