Humanizing health care reform in your region

By Flickr user Fibonacci Blue

Health care reform limped back to center stage this week.  And though the final outcome is as yet uncertain, one thing is for sure: Your readers will be wondering about how various scenarios will affect them.

That includes small businesspersons and corporate chiefs as well as individuals, so you have plenty of story angles from which to choose.

Unless you’ve got years behind you on the business-of-health beat, or you’re a fast-study policy maven, you’re probably feeling confused right about now about how exactly reform will trickle down to the local level.  And you certainly are not alone.

Some reporters on the beat say the Kaiser Family Foundation is a good go-to resource.  Not only does their Web site’s health care reform channel offer a trove of information – like side-by-side comparisons of the various proposed bills – but their analysts are responsive to reporters and helpful in explaining things on deadline, said Christina Rogers, my former colleague and a seasoned health-business reporter.

Earlier this week, The Detroit News ran this compelling story by Rogers. It details the plight of a 26-year-old chronically ill man who can’t even get a straight answer about how much he owes and who was nearly denied a colostomy repair because he was in arrears on payment. (A sympathetic surgeon intervened; the hospital says there was a misunderstanding.)

It doesn’t get much more nitty-gritty than that, and illustrates the inequity, complexity and bureaucracy of our health insurance system.  And you needn’t be a health care expert to tackle it, just a painstaking reporter with a gift for drawing out telling detail from your subjects.

The Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. is touted as a non-partisan think tank and it does a lot of economic research into health care and related matter.  Currently it features a “cost of failure” package that provides forecasts about uninsured individuals, the costs of health insurance to businesses and the uncompensated care our medical centers would end up providing.  All of the above are worthy springboards to local-impact stories.

You should do a survey of some of your area’s largest employers; many no doubt have their own economists and financial analysts working on cost-benefit scenarios depending on the outcome of reform, the demographics of their workforce, etc. – even if they won’t share company-specific research they might talk about methodology or sit in on a panel discussion you organize.  I suggest large companies because they have the wherewithal and resources, but don’t overlook medium-sized and small businesses, either.

Here, for example, a Florida TV station gives us a glimpse into one small business owner’s dilemma about health care costs  – and his fears that any future savings thanks to reform will simply be offset by higher taxes.

Some of my previous blog posts address other story ideas; here’s one that mainly focuses on consumer angles but also includes links to helpful resources for journalist.

And this post suggests some biz feature ideas and how focusing on sectors that are prominent in your area – such as pharma or medical equipment makers – might be a good prism through which to tell the reform tale.