Are employers ready for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or not?

Aflac funded a 2013 Open Enrollment Survey of 2,001 U.S. consumers, and concluded that neither employers nor employees are ready for the changes that will begin to hit them Oct. 1. That's when state insurance exchanges will begin accepting applications for coverage, with many of those applications expected to come from employees now covered in one form or another by their employers. That's also the deadline for employers to notify workers of their benefits package options.

Seven in 10 workers who responded to the survey said they had yet to hear any clear communication from their employers about how PPACA might impact their health benefits. But that makes sense, considering that just 9 percent of employers told Aflac they were "very prepared" to integrate the changes mandated by PPACA into their own benefits packages.