The Massachusetts Employer Benefit Survey interviewed 1,056 randomly-selected Massachusetts firms with three or more employees about employers' attitudes, knowledge, and anticipated responses to health care reform in the state.

Using a sample frame from Survey Sampling Incorporated, interviewers from National Research, LLC, conducted interviews with employee benefits managers between February and July of 2007. Primary study issues include:

• Do Massachusetts employers support the spirit of health care reform?
• Do Massachusetts employers support the current fee on employers not offering coverage of $295 per employee?
• Do Massachusetts employers believe that firms with 10 or fewer workers should be subject to the requirements of "pay or play?"
• What are the views of Massachusetts employers about the Connector?
• Is there evidence that health care reform is leading to "crowd out" in the private sector?

NORC analyzed data from the Massachusetts survey and compared it to similar data for the nation's employers using the 2007 Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust Employer Health Benefits Survey.

Findings from the study will be released in November in the journal Health Affairs.