Like broken records, proponents and opponents of health care reform continue to parrot the same opposing views of the law to everyone within earshot. 
Most Republicans argue the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will lead to the fall of civilization as we know it. Similarly, the overwhelming majority of Democrats continue to express unwavering optimism about the long-term benefits of the law – known commonly as Obamacare.
Like so much else in life, the truth likely lies somewhere in the space between these two diametrically opposed viewpoints.
Unfortunately, Americans have been subjected to far too much coverage of the political dogfight and not enough nuanced, calm and thoughtful explanations of what the law’s provisions really mean for them.
The latest example of this pattern came late in the afternoon of July 2, when the administration announced it would be delaying for one year the penalty employers with more than 50 employees would have to pay for not providing adequate health insurance to their workers.
Republicans, emboldened by the decision, quickly pounced and heralded the move as a sign the law is beginning to fall apart. Democrats went on the defensive, claiming they were just responding to pleas from businesses that didn’t want to be hurt by such an excessive legislative burden.
The media covered both viewpoints fairly and with equal time. However, almost none of the coverage accurately reflected the ramifications of the ruling, nor the intent of the provision.
Bob Semro is a health care policy analyst with the Bell Policy Center. In an article discussing the employer mandate delay for the health policy website “Solutions,” he noted that the motivation behind the original provision wasn’t designed to be punitive. It was included in the law as protection for employees and taxpayers. Moreover, he reveals a critical facet of the directive missing from all the fire and brimstone rhetoric: Less than 1 percent (10,000 of 5.7 million) of businesses would have had to pay a penalty in the first place.
“So, why did Congress include the employer-responsibility provision in the Affordable Care Act?” Semro asks. “As with the ACA in general, the goal is to encourage, entice or require the maximum number of people to participate in the system. That’s how costs will be controlled. Currently, 49 percent of Americans get health insurance as part of their job. Employers clearly make a significant financial contribution to health care coverage, and from a system wide point of view, that contribution is critical to funding our current health care payment system. If that contribution were reduced, the difference would have to be made up by employees, other consumers and taxpayers.”
He goes on to offer several additional pros and cons associated with the employer penalty, concluding: “So, perhaps the question about the delay is less important than whether the employer responsibility provision is the best approach to meet the law’s objectives. Employer reporting could be less onerous. The law could be modified to base the penalty on the percentage of payroll that a business spends on health care instead of a threshold based on full-time employees.”
Semro’s thoughtful explanation highlights the continuing problem with much of the other health care reform coverage: It’s turned into a he-said, she-said debate with the two political parties cast as bickering spouses.
I am not going to take the easy way out – like many – and blame the media for the lack of quality ACA coverage. Changes, updates and clarifications to the law are announced on an almost daily basis.
As I noted in a previous blog, an article by Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer Drew Altman concluded that covering the ACA could be harder than implementing it.
Based on the constant monitoring of Obamacare developments we do on behalf of various health care and professional services clients, I view the void another way: Facing pressure from the right and left to be “balanced,” the media in many cases don’t know who to turn to for unbiased, basic facts when it comes to the rapidly changing health care landscape.
As I’ve often written in this space, that’s where the real business development opportunity exists for professional services organizations with health care reform expertise. 
Companies both large and small still can’t make heads nor tails of the ACA. It’s arriving via open enrollment in less than three months and the first provisions take full effect on New Year’s Day, 2014.
For businesses and employees, health care reform has real consequences. Who should people trust to communicate those implications? Politicians with self-serving agendas? I would hope not.
If you’re in the business or want to be in the business of advising clients about the impact of the ACA, then your experts need to be the ones the media look to for guidance in their news coverage.
At WordWrite, we can get your experts in front of the right news sources. Yes, this issue has been a tough sell to reporters because of the steady flow of new regulations and complexity of the law. But our persistence and strong relationships with the media have resulted in placements, interviews and coverage for our clients’ employee benefit thought leaders across the east coast.
Let us do the same for you.
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Jeremy Church is an account supervisor for WordWrite Communications. He can be reached at jeremy.church@wordwritepr.com and on Twitter @churchjeremy.
