June 21, 2011: From the desk of SHADAC Director Lynn Blewett
Facing mounting criticism of its recent findings about the future of employer-sponsored insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA), McKinsey & Company has released the methods used in its survey of employers.
Looking at the survey instrument and results, it's quickly clear that McKinsey skirted the critical issue of low awareness among employers about the details of the ACA. A more appropriate title for their findings might have been “Almost two-thirds of employers (61%) have limited (low) awareness of the Affordable Care Act” (Survey Results, S1, p. 2). Even among those with an influential or decision-making role in their firm’s health care offer decision, well over half (60%) had low awareness about the ACA (Survey Results, Q1-01,p. 9). In fact, a fair number of these high-level decision-makers didn’t even have a great deal of awareness about the status of their own health care programs: Seventeen percent didn’t know whether their company offered a self-insured or fully- insured health care program to their workers—a key variable in determining the likely effect of the ACA on an employer’s health insurance coverage (Survey Results, Q12, pg. 47)
While I am glad to see that McKinsey has released the details of its study, it appears that a significant number of those interviewed didn’t know much about the topic and likely were responding to the “education” that McKinsey provided as part of the survey (Survey Questionnaire, Q44, pg 25-26).