$295 per employee (I assume this is per year) to get out of providing them with health care? That's a bargain! Try to get any kind of coverage as a self-employed person for $295 a year - no way.
Prediction: So many companies are going to pay this fee to get out of providing coverage that they're going to either have to up the fee substantially or raise taxes even more to pay for all the people who will be dumped out of their employee paid health care.
Exactly! This is the 'worse-is-better' dialetic. In order to make government health care a reality, every competing method of providing health care must be ruined. Eventually, the cost of the the system will be come so burdensome, that the government drones will declare it 'unfair' that some folks have lower priced private insurance with better coverage, or that some folks can afford to do without insurance. Everybody will be forced to pay in.
Later, the optional 'kill-the-rich' stage (follows the 'soak-the-rich' stage sometimes) might show up, where it's unfair that the rich still have so much money after paying in, and they will still pay, but will be kicked out of the benefit pool.
If I ran a company in Mass, the fee would come from my employees as a reduction in their pay. Then they can call “Coupe Deval” the new Gov of Mass and bitch to him.
Self employed folks should really join their local Chamber of Commerce. They can then get a group rate through their membership.