We’ve become so obsessed with mandates, exchanges andmedical-loss ratios that we’re starting to lose sight of the forestfor the trees. And we’re certainly not paying attention to all theother predators lurking behind every shadow. Now I realize those ofus in the media are as complicit as anyone in this suffocatingcoverage. (If it bleeds, it leads, right?) In any given month,health reform in some shape or form gobbles up as many pages as anyother single topic in this magazine.

So, at the risk of casting a cloying pall over your alreadytumultuous workday, it’s worth taking time out from wringing ourhands over what’s going on in Washington to take a wider view ofthe landscape as it stands today. (And don’t think for a second wedon’t share your concern, because despite our roles as journalists, observing and documenting what’s going on in thebenefits business, without readers we’re no better than Nerofumbling with this fiddle while the rest of you burn.

Like the proverbial tree crashing into the deserted forestfloor, without an audience, our words don’t make a sound. Unreadwords might as well be blank pages.) You think there isn’t a hordeof other sources of friction or erosion shaping the landscape underour collective feet? You think the suits in Washington are the onlyones trying to put you out of business? There are at least 50 othersets of regulators working every day to make your job harder.