The daily media horse race evaluating the success of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continues to circle the track – and boy was today’s news a potential game-changer – but the focus of most survey results has been on satisfaction levels for individual consumers who were previously uninsured.
I don’t want to diminish the significance of new health care opportunities for that portion of the population, but most media coverage continues to ignore the lack of urgency in implementing the law from the single most important providers of insurance for American workers – their own companies.
The New York Times “Agenda” blog cited a Rand survey last week that revealed nearly 117 million people receive their health care benefits from their employer – an 8 percent increase from last September through March. Approximately half of Americans get health insurance as part of their job.
Yet in spite of the fact so many still get their insurance through work, most employers remain stuck when it comes to adjusting to upcoming aspects of the ACA.
Perhaps that’s because the delay of the employer mandate until 2015 – the penalty that employers with more than 50 employees would have to pay for not providing adequate health insurance to their workers – has bought larger businesses a little more time to conform.
However, citing law firm Littler Mendelson’s annual Executive Employer Survey Report, a recent article in Employee Benefit News notes nearly 40 percent of employers haven’t done anything yet, “as they believe they are still on course despite extensions; 14 percent are taking a ‘wait and see’ approach in hopes that the employer mandate will be amended or repealed and 14 percent have delayed planning some aspects in the event that future concessions to the mandates are granted.”
Does this mean businesses don’t care about their workers? Of course not. Our extensive experience working with consultants with a detailed knowledge of health care reform tells us that many employers are still paralyzed by the decisions they have to make in the months ahead.
For these businesses and their employees, health care reform has real consequences. Who should they trust to communicate those implications?
What about experts working knee-deep in the law every day? These thought leaders can help grow their businesses by positioning themselves as sources of knowledge and insight for the numerous other companies in need of health care reform advice.
And what better place to share this expertise with the widest possible audience than through the media?
Facing pressure from the right and left to be “balanced,” reporters in many cases don’t know where to turn for unbiased, basic facts when it comes to the rapidly changing health care landscape.
That’s where the real business development opportunity exists for organizations with ACA knowledge. 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.
WordWrite knows a little about this because it’s been a big part of our health care work. Since the ACA was signed into law more than four years ago, we’ve consistently communicated the historic impact of health care reform to our contacts in the media. This issue has always been a tough sell to reporters, but it begins with an effort to educate them about our ability to connect them to subject matter experts and then grows from that initial dialogue.
Our persistence and strong relationships with the media have resulted in placements, interviews and coverage for our clients’ health care and professional services thought leaders in Atlanta, Chicago, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, Nashville, Washington D.C. and Pittsburgh – one city in particular where we’ve helped inform nearly every print and television outlet on the significance of health-care reform and exchange options.
Knowledge is in short supply when it comes to health care reform, and health care and professional service organizations have it in spades. Let us help you become a conduit to the businesses, companies and executives who drastically need guidance on the ACA before it’s too late.
The window is closing for companies to communicate what the ACA has in store for workers in 2015. Open enrollment arrives in mere weeks and more provisions – including the employer mandate – take full effect on New Year’s Day.
Consultants and other businesses that hang their hats on providing health care reform guidance are probably missing out on a chance to position themselves as ACA experts to companies and journalists thirsting for knowledge on the subject.
Want to more about our thinking on how to position thought leaders as an oasis of knowledge amid the desert of health care reform ignorance? Contact me and I’d be glad to share some initial thoughts.
Jeremy Church is vice president of media and content strategies for WordWrite Communications. He can be reached at jeremy.church@wordwritepr.com and on Twitter @churchjeremy.
