WARREN – The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will have a dramatically negative impact on small businesses, according to a survey by the Michigan Business and Professional Association, but the majority of respondents plan to continue to offer health care insurance separate from the federal exchange regardless.

“In recent years, our members have increasingly expressed concerns about how rising premiums of as much as 15 to 20 percent per year are placing a strain on business, especially in this time of continued economic recovery,” association CEO Jennifer Kluge said in a statement.

The survey showed an 11 percent drop in the number of respondents who said they pay the entire cost of health care premiums for full-time employees, from 46 percent in 2012 to 35 percent currently. At the same time, the association said, there has been a slight increase in the number who pay 50 percent to 79 percent of the costs, from 29 percent in 2012 to 30 percent currently.

“With 89 percent of the survey respondents employing 50 employees or less, their angst over continuing to provide employee coverage has been exacerbated with full implementation of the Affordable Care Act on the horizon,” Kluge said.

And other trending data could be cause for concern, including that 27 percent of employers who cover dependents paid 100 percent of dependent premiums in 2012, but only 19 percent continued to do so currently.

Still, the majority of respondents to the survey said providing health care to employees was their top priority. In fact, 81 percent ranked it as a “very important benefit.”

About 91 percent of respondents still offer health insurance and pay all or part of the costs (88 percent of the time) for their full-time employees, the report said, as compared to 89 percent paying costs only 66 percent of the time in 2012.

And 77 percent are not planning to drop health care coverage so employees buy their own health care through the federal exchange instead.

But Charlie Owens, with the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said his group has been predicting from the outset that “a lot of small business owners are just going to give up.”

“I think a lot of them are throwing up their hands and saying, ‘Go to the exchange,'” Owens said. “Even the ones below 50 employees that don’t have to comply with the draconian provisions of the act are battle-fatigued with taking chances, cost increases and uncertainty.”

He said his group predicts many workers will end up with part-time jobs because employers “on the bubble” of the 50 employee-threshold will cut hours.

“The act has not made health care affordable, has not helped those who need health care and does very little that it needed to do,” Owens said.

But Kluge, in a phone interview, said while health care is still a large cost for her group’s members, they continue to shop for pricing and quality of coverage.

“We also know health care reform is going to make that more complicated, but our members are taking a wait-and-see approach as it relates to health care choices in the future,” she said.

With the expected launch of the federal health care exchange on October 1, Kluge said members have been able to see rates and they are going to increase, creating a negative impact on small employers. But, she said, “by no means are any members saying they are going to throw their hands up in the air” because they know offering health care coverage is not only a priority but also a smart business strategy.

The survey of just under 300 members was taken in July.

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