Before PPACA, brokers were primarily salesconsultants or partners, and legal and regulatory knowledge wasimportant but secondary. The theme of conversations with clientswas “what benefit plan best fits your business?” Post-PPACA,brokers still have a sales role, but they have a more limited“menu” that they can offer, said Roger Abramson in his breakoutsession, “Wise Counsel: Say This, Not That When Advising Clients onPPACA Compliance.” Legal and regulatory knowledge are now just asimportant, he noted, and the theme is. “How can you mostappropriately comply with PPACA?”

Abramson reminded the audience that it’s important to know whatyou know and what you don’t know. Clients are expectingthe same level of what he calls “I-can-answer-that service thatthey’ve always had,” but the reality is that unless there is a partof PPACA, a rule or a regulation addressing a specific situation,“you don’t know the law,” he emphasized. “You know the PPACA rules,but you don’t know the facts; you need to know to apply the rules.What if the client has the wrong facts? Or doesn’t give you all thefacts?”

It’s the same problem for employee benefit lawyers, Abramsonadmitted. “There’s a lot nobody knows.”