Author: Kelley Butler

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The ACA: From C-SPAN to Sea Change

I’m a lifelong political junkie, be it by nature or nurture. A native daughter of the nation’s capital, I grew up going on field trips to the Capitol, White House and Supreme Court. You could argue that a love of politics was predestined.

So, I’ll always remember that on March 21, 2010, I felt like a kid on Christmas Eve waiting for Santa Claus — glued to C-SPAN waiting to see if the House would pass the Senate version of the health care reform bill. I was the editor in chief of Employee Benefit News; technically, watching the night’s events was part of my job. Truth be told, I would’ve watched to the end regardless.

When the bill passed that night by seven votes, my husband glanced at the TV over my shoulder and said, “You have to go to work now, don’t you?” I nodded, and went to grab my laptop.

We covered the bill’s passage for EBN the next day — coverage that coincidentally included comments from my current employer, Benz Communications. When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law two days later, I remember thinking, “This changes everything.”

Now, there’s an understatement if there ever was one, right?

It’s hard to believe that five years have since passed, with the ACA surviving charges of death panels, chair-tossing town-hall sessions, more than 40 repeal votes and a major Supreme Court challenge.

It was electric, albeit exhausting, to be in D.C. during those months and years. I recall one of my reporters getting elbowed out of her sight line at the Supreme Court by an ABC cameraman. She’d arrived! I remember editing video interviews from outside the chamber and compiling photo galleries of the various protests around the city. Most clearly, I remember the hot day in June 2012 when the Supreme Court ruling was announced, and getting an email from a staffer that read, “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. Thank you for letting me be part of it.”

What has the benefit of hindsight given me since then? Not much in the way of clarity, perhaps too much in complexity. I know you can more than relate to the complexities that the ACA has brought, as you’ve spent the past five years working to comply with the law and communicate it to your workforce.

In general, though, how I view the ACA now mostly is unchanged from how I viewed it then, which, in excerpt, is this:

“I think ACA is largely a bad law. Certainly, ACA contains some provisions that I like a lot. I’m quite pleased that I’ll no longer be charged higher health care premiums simply for being born a girl … that friends with chronically ill children won’t have to worry about benefit caps … that a friend recently treated for cancer won’t have to worry about being denied coverage down the road due to a pre-existing condition.

“Still, my biggest reservations about the legislation were that it did very little (if anything) to address our nation’s ridiculously high health care costs and even less to improve efficiency and quality.

“We still pay more in health care than any industrialized nation and get less for our money’s worth. Our health care system is overburdened with too much paper, too much testing, and too much obesity. Those things are just as true today as they were before ACA was upheld, before March 2010 when ACA was signed, and they’ll be just as true in 2014, when much of ACA goes into full effect.”

Not to toot my own horn and change my name to Kreskin, but just weeks ago, Steven Brill, author of Time magazine’s famous “America’s Bitter Pill” cover story and a new book also on the topic of health care costs, told talk show host Jon Stewart: “Nothing in the 965 pages of the Affordable Care Act does anything about the exorbitant cost of care. The problem with health care in this country is very simple: The cost is too damn high.”

So, the past five years have been for nothing? No, I don’t think so. In approving and upholding the ACA, we now have our first-ever national health care policy. It’s not a great one, but at least it’s a starting point; somewhere, I think there’s good policy. We just have to do the work to find it.

Kelley M. Butler is the editorial director at Benz Communications, an HR/benefits communication strategy firm. Before joining Benz, Butler spent 11 years at Employee Benefit News, including seven as editor in chief. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.

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Ammunition for Immunization

It's the dog days of summer — those hot and humid weeks of August are when you want to stay inside and keep cool. This month, help your employees by letting them know that some of the best air-conditioned places around are doctor’s offices and pharmacies. Hint, hint.

While it’s already known for the heat, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services would like August to be known for health as well. This month is National Immunization Awareness Month, and employers committed to employee health and wellness — that’s all of them, right? — should feel compelled to participate given recent statistics around immunization and illness.

The whooping cough outbreak that occurred in California in 2010 was traced earlier this year to children who hadn’t received the pertussis vaccine to prevent the disease. It was the nation’s worst in more than 50 years.

Nationwide, more cases of whooping cough occurred in geographic areas of clustered unvaccinated children, leading to 9,120 instances of the disease and 10 deaths.

Further, although measles was declared eradicated in the United States in 2000, there have been recent outbreaks in California, New York and Texas, and the disease is on track to infect three times as many people as in 2009. The spike is being traced back to unvaccinated individuals traveling abroad, getting infected, then bringing the disease back home to their U.S. communities.

Everyone loves a deal; staying healthy at no cost is one of the best deals around.

While there were just 189 cases of measles nationwide last year, health experts are concerned since the disease is so highly contagious and cases are rising rapidly. In California alone, there were four measles cases all of last year. By March 2014, there were already 49 across the state.

It’s not just childhood immunizations that are going uncompleted. Health experts emphasize that an annual flu shot is the best and easiest way to prevent the disease and its spread. However, yearly federal statistics show that only about a third of U.S. adults get a flu shot — a percentage that’s held steady for more than five years — while influenza and its related complications cause tens of thousands of deaths each year.

Employers can play a key role in communication and education about the importance of immunization, and have a ready-made promotion vehicle this month. Visit health finder.gov, keywords “national immunization awareness month” for free materials, resources and campaign ideas to spread awareness instead of illness among your workforce.

Then, here are a few other ideas to effectively communicate with employees about getting vaccinated:

Tell them it’s free! Under the Affordable Care Act, preventive care, including immunizations, must be covered 100 percent with no copays or cost-sharing. Everyone loves a deal; staying healthy at no cost is one of the best deals around. Lead with that message, and you’ll be off to a solid start.

Make it easy. I’m not certain, but my strong suspicion is that flu vaccination rates among adults are so low because we’re busy, and we view taking an hour to go get a flu shot as inconvenient and no fun. Combat inertia and excuses by offering on-site flu-shot clinics during the workday, if possible. If not, provide employees with a list of nearby pharmacies or physicians where they can get immunized.

Stay sensitive to health concerns and cultural convictions. It’s important to remember that parents have their children’s best interests at heart, and don’t take lightly the decision not to vaccinate their kids. There’s general consensus in the health community that childhood vaccines don’t pose long-term risk. However, parents who don’t vaccinate their children feel compelled to do so for cultural or religious reasons, or because they have genuine concerns about the effects on their child’s health. Employers have to respect those concerns and beliefs, and make sure any immunization campaign is positive and proactive — not prescriptive and pushy.

Employers remain a trusted and reliable source of information. I encourage you to use that influence toward addressing a national issue this month.

Kelley M. Butler is the editorial director at Benz Communications, an HR/benefits communication strategy firm. Before joining Benz, Butler spent 11 years at Employee Benefit News, including seven as editor-in-chief. To comment, email editors@workforce.com.