PPACA: The politicians have moved on

The cameras, press conferences, town hall meetings, picketing, etc. have come to a screeching halt since the health bill was signed into law.  It has been moved aside in the 24-hour news cycle with outrage and disgust at the recent oil disaster in the gulf and overhauling financial institutions and the "to big to fail" mentality. 

Healthcare reform is now left in the hands of staffers, special interest groups and a team of bureaucrats who have to now write the specific regulations and details around the spirit of the health reform bill.  Leading the charge will be the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  In response to the recent law being passed, HHS has established a new office charged with implementing the health insurance provision in the new law.  On April 19^th the Office of Consumer Information and Oversight became operational.  This office is responsible for ensuring compliance with the new insurance market rules (which still have not been written).  It will also be responsible for providing oversight and guidance for the state-based insurance exchanges and temporary high-risk pool programs.  They will be using temporary staff drawn from the existing ranks of HHS employees but are aggressively hiring people to fill roles to achieve the goals before them.  With this in mind, here are a few observations:

1. Confusion and frustration will be a common theme with employers, payers and consumers. Employers will begin (if they have not already) reviewing their health plans for 2011 in the next few weeks and it is hard to know what to do when the specific timing of mandates and language around mandates are unknown.
2. Consultants and brokers will be looked upon as experts and telling employers what to do. They have always been viewed this way but their role in the upcoming renewals will be different. They will have to present new and different approaches if they are going to maintain their relationships with their clients.
3. We are at a tipping point. New ideas have to be presented and implemented. We all know healthcare costs will NOT come down. They will increase and increase substantially so employers will have to see "game changing" ideas if they want to maintain their coverage for their employees.

We live in interesting times and over the next few months we will see a growing sense of frustration.  NCN is prepared to handle these trying times with proven innovative approaches that dramatically reduce the healthcare spend by replacing traditional methods of managed care (no longer effective) with a rational, transparent and defensible approach to healthcare payment.