Fewer than four in 10 Maryland small businesses provided health coverage to their workers in the state at the end of last year.

Exactly 37.6% of state companies employing between two and 50 workers offered health insurance, according to a Washington Business Journal article, citing Maryland Health Care Commission report. The total number of workers receiving coverage through the small-group market in the state last year was 381,517.

In 2008, a total of 51,283 employers in the small-group market provided 407,983 employees with coverage, the newspaper said, adding that about 6,000 employers and 46,000 employees are no longer covered through the small-group market since 2007.

The numbers cited by the Maryland Health Care Commission predate health care reform, which CareFirst’s CEO, Chet Burrell, says could “atomize” the small-group market in the U.S.