CHICAGO – The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is, as intended, reshaping the benefits world but many HR managers are struggling to stay on top of the law’s many rules, though there’s no evidence of a looming implementation train wreck.
Those were the big takeaways Sunday from a report released by the Society for Human Resource Management and a presentation by Alex Alonso, the organization’s vice president of research.
Alonso said a quarter of the survey’s respondents reported they were having a tough time keeping up with the changes in the health care law and what is expected of them.
See also: Nearly half of Americans don’t know PPACA is law
Employers have long complained about the complexity of the law but SHRM’s finding is especially troubling given the short few months left before full implementation of the law begins in October.
The nominal good news? Twenty percent of those questioned said they were having trouble understanding the details of the law vs. 31 percent in 2010.
Alonso initially described the finding as “astonishing,” though he later softened his comment, terming it merely “interesting.”
Despite these findings, he said SHRM saw no evidence of “any kind of train wreck” – which is how some critics of the law in Congress and others have described their concerns.
“It’s clear there are certain perspectives about the law but I don’t think there’s any looming disaster,” he said.