Brokers will, in essence, be thetelevangelist of health care reform, spreading hope and stoking thefires of change among their clients.

What will the health care and benefits industry look like fiveyears from now? Perhaps there's no better group of people to askthan our Broker of the Year finalists, five individuals leading thecharge of disruption and reform in the industry. Where are theytaking us? Or rather, where are we taking ourselves?

“It takes a movement of many of us saying the same thing andgoing in the same direction,”  Kareim Cade of Great LakesBenefits Group said in a panel Q&A before the Broker of theYear announcement the BenefitsPRO Broker Expo in Miami. “It's beingbold–bold enough to say this is wrong and things need to be fixed,and not apologizing for that.”

Tim Doherty of Pinnacle HR Solutions and the 2019 Broker of theYear emphasized the need for a collective movement. “When you thinkabout folks in this room, everyone's changing the conversation,” hesaid. “That increases validity and credibility. The more folks inmy marketplace being disruptive, it helps everybody.”

One area not to look toward for disruption in the coming years:government legislation. ”We are in a position of somewhat stagnatedstalemate for the next three to fiveyears,” said GDP Advisors' SethDenson. ”After that my crystal ball is fuzzy. But we'llsee [on the employer side] what we're seeing today: morepeople stepping up, more people rising and saying, 'this isn'tworking.' The more of us step up, the more that crystal ball canbecome clearer.”

Related: Out on a limb: Predictions for the benefitsindustry in 2019

Echelon Group”s Doug Hetherington shared an anecdote of a phonecall he was part of shortly after President Trump's election. Sinceits passage, the speaker said, the ACA had relied on the governmentto give it value. Now, it's shifting to the free market, wherebrokers, employers and other stakeholders will decide whatdirection health care reform takes. “We have a massive opportunityover the next five years to truly impact health care,” Hetheringtonsaid. “Not just the financing, but the actual health caresystem.”

There was a lot of emphasis on this free-market system, the ideathat a health care system ruled by supply and demand, pricetransparency and true consumer choice. “I would love to see us geteverybody's hand out of the cookie jar,” said Wanza Schweiger ofBenefits Innovations, referring to the convoluted pharmacy supplychain. “It's ridiculous, the pharmacy side. We have to figure out,find a cleaner way to get through it. It comes from knowing what itactually cost.”

As the business model of health care shifts, the broker rolewill change accordingly. “Five years from now, you're going to seemore people positioning themselves as business advisors and notbrokers,” said Tim Doherty of Pinnacle HR Solutions, our Broker ofthe Year.

As business advisors, brokers will help employers create healthcare strategies, taking advantage of a growing network of newresources and solutions. “We'll see more movement away fromtraditional insurance carriers, networks will start to disappearbecause there are more creative solutions out there,” Schweigeradded.

Brokers will, in essence, be the televangelist of health carereform, spreading hope and stoking the fires of change among theirclients. “More employers will take to the streets and say enough isenough,” Cade said. “That's when we have a revolution. As wecontinue to make a demand on the employer level, demand on change,that's what we'll see happening.”

Read more of our Expocoverage: 

• Broker Expo keynote: How to create yourS-T-A-M-P
• Knowing your worth, and other strategies forbrokers to build their businesses
• Improving the employee experience throughtechnology