I have a confession to make: I'm a little tired of health care reform. Writing about it, hearing about it, soliciting and editing stories about it – it's kind of getting old. How do I stop writing the same types of leads over and over again? How do I make this topic interesting and fresh?
That's a pretty heavy confession for the editor of a business-to-business magazine, given that my No. 1 task is making industry issues easier for you to understand, and helping you succeed in the face of these issues. And there has been no industry issue bigger than health care reform in recent memory (at least my recent memory).
All that being said, I gently remind myself that I don't really need to make it interesting and fresh. That what my lead says is only important to me – what's important to you is what's in this bill, how it affects you, and how it affects your clients.
In talking with industry experts and producers, I've heard nearly as wide of a variety of opinions as there are people in this world. While putting together a recent story about our 2010 Health Market Study, I spoke with one agent who's been in the business for more than 30 years and who called himself very conservative. His friends and colleagues are very conservative, too. As a result, he's really ticked some people off – because he's all for health care reform. In fact, he said, his only problem with what's been going on for the past nine months is that Congress hadn't actually done anything.
Well, at least one agent's problem went away in late March, when the health care reform legislation was actually passed and President Obama put his signature on it. But then many more problems arose for many more agents – as in, what's next? And when do these things take affect? And what's in this bill anyway? And are we still going to have jobs? And oh my gosh, the rate increases will be unbelievable!
