Introduction

So you're thinking about buying health coverage for your California business, but you're not sure if it's the right decision. No question, health insurance—especially for businesses with 50 or fewer employees—can be confusing.

Here in Part One: Getting Started, we offer a broad overview of the issues, rules, terminology and other information you should understand early on. Use this information to help you decide whether you're ready to get serious about purchasing health coverage for your business. As you go through Part One, keep two things in mind:

• Part One introduces you to many, but not all, of the considerations involved in making a decision on purchasing group health coverage. If you read this section and decide you might be ready to purchase health coverage, you'll still have more research to tackle and decisions to make. We cover that process in Part Two: Getting Covered.
• Rather than bog you down with in-depth information that you may not need, we stick to the basics here and occasionally point you to more in-depth information.