How to cover Obamacare? Localize it!

How should newspapers write about the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare? Tell the readers what it means specifically for them, Tampa Tribune health reporter Mary Shedden writes.

Also, don’t talk to advocates for or against Obamacare. Both sides provide inaccurate information to promote their agendas. Keep politics out of explanatory stories.

With the Oct. 1 launch of the online marketplace, gobs of money are being spent to attract an estimated 48 million uninsured Americans.

In response, IBM, Time Warner, Walgreens, K-Mart, Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other major retail and restaurant companies are switching from insuring their employees to giving them money and forcing their employees to find and buy their own coverage.

ACA/Obamacare lumbers toward its biggest milestone Jan. 1 – mandatory health insurance for nearly all Americans.

To read the entire Shedden article, click on http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/224122/how-reporters-can-localize-coverage-of-the-affordable-care-act/