Healthcare Reform's Impact on Agencies... and Our New Website

Posted on by Brian

Welcome to our first blog and our new website.  We here at BHBCo are excited to be able to share our thoughts on current issues with our friends and clients through this new forum – and we definitely want to hear your thoughts back!  Our goal is to write about topics that will interest you and that can impact the way you look at your agency’s (or other organizations') operations.

Please take a look around and let us know what you think of our new site too! - Jason

Impact on Agencies of Health Care Reform Legislation

We plan to do a more extensive piece on this subject in an upcoming Burke Ink, but our early thoughts are these:

  • If you are in the small-company employee-benefits business today in any significant way, and you want to stay in it, we think you’re ok.  We don’t see anything yet that will cause benefits agencies (in general) to go the way of 8-track tape players.
  • But, if you want to stay in it, or get in it, you had better be prepared to flex, learn, get frustrated, be unsure, and have customers and prospects vent their spleens at you.  There won’t be much room for sissies.  Learning is usually a good thing, but the learning part of this new development is not likely to be very inspiring.  I had someone recently read me the law’s definition of “small,” as in small company, and my hair began to hurt.  I felt the strong need for an adult beverage.
  • If you are hoping to dabble in it, or just enjoy some passive diversification of revenue, we are not very high on your chances for happiness.  You could become very bad at that part of your job.

The main point here is that the subject with which you will be dealing is a very important one, and one on which business owners, business managers, individuals, and heads of households will need advice, and to some degree will still need commissionable products.  Those producers who focus on their customers, get their arms around the machinations of the Health Care Exchanges and the like, and cut through the weeds to see, and be able to explain, the key points and trade-offs, will be very valuable players in the community.  That combination – the ability to approach an important, confusing, and expensive subject with focus, practical advice, and follow-up service – usually leads to getting paid pretty well.  BHB