MIDDLETOWN, Mo. For pork producer Jim Fisher, providing health care insurance for his employees is a way to make sure he gets good workers.

He farms in Northeast Missouris Pike County with his brother, David.

The family has 2,600 sows and markets about 65,000 pigs annually. They have eight salaried, full-time employees.

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are exempt from the Affordable Care Acts employer mandate to provide health insurance. But, for Fisher, having health insurance for employees is a good business practice.

If you want to attract employees, good employees, thats probably the No. 1 thing, Fisher says of providing health insurance. I always try to look at it, if I were looking for a job, Id be asking the same thing.

Fisher buys the group insurance policy for his employees through an agent in nearby Bowling Green.

All our employees, we pay 100 percent of their health care (insurance premiums), Fisher says.

Like most people, Fisher has felt the effects of rising health-care costs.

In the past weve had to raise the deductible, he says. . . . We try to adjust their salary to what the health care is costing us. If you get an older person, it costs more.

Fishers brother, David, gets health insurance through his wifes off-farm job. Jim Fisher buys an individual health insurance plan for himself, separate from the farm-employee plan.

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