At present, the conventional wisdom appears to be that many employees will simply be dumped into the exchanges and employers will wash their hands of the health care issue. But even if advisers have clients who make this choice, they should consider offering exchange advocacy services to this group. Employees are going to need an advocate to answer questions and assist with navigating exchanges. Without help, it’s a potential nightmare that could lead to a very dissatisfied workforce.
As it currently stands, 28 states will have federally-approved, more-or-less uniform exchanges. The other 22? An unpredictable grab bag that could see some states have one, single-payer option, while others (think California) could have nearly 50 choices from which to pick. The crux is, there have to be people in place who know the ins and outs of all of them.
