SAN DIEGO – What a week.
One of the best parts of my job is helping put together our conference every year. Sure, it's fun rubbing elbows with the various celebrities we bring to these events and, of course, the parties are a blast. But it's these three days of the year when I'm able to spend some quality time with the brokers actually working in the trenches, calming employer fears and navigating an increasingly tricky terrain.
I get some of the most raw feedback from both brokers and carriers, not only about our coverage, but about how business is, where it's going and what they're worried about.
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These conversations, of course, inform how and what we write about, as well as keep us up to speed in a market that's changing before our eyes. From my first day on the job, I've let the readers dictate what we cover.
And I think it's made all the difference.
But it's also important to be able to step back and maybe take a different look at things. Not to get too deep at a trade show – in sunny Southern California, no less – but I worry sometimes that maybe we're too close to this thing. Especially when it comes to health care reform.
Our two keynote speakers, Rick Santorum and Washington Post pundit Ezra Klein, approached Obamacare from two very different places. And the stark contrast painted by these two made me think about the greater conversation and if there were some questions that still need to be asked.
It also has me more than a little worried that we've been so caught up in this that we're allowing other things to sneak up on us.
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