I slowly said, "Don't forget that "they" have said "they" will use the medical data on us to come for our guns, too." Note to self: I need to invent a typeface or font that indicates written sarcasm.

 I assumed that my sarcasm would be met with the same. The reaction surprised me. They shifted in their chairs, smiled, and gestured for me to join them. Clearly, conspiracy theories are a ticket to entry in their circle. I sat down. This should be interesting. 

In the next 15 minutes, with a few well-chosen open-ended questions I triggered several blasts of white, hot anger at the ACA.  

I learned that:

1. The wxchanges are government-controlled health care that every employer is required to buy (totally false).

2. Employers must pay a $100 a day fine per employee for not complying with the exchanges (false on several levels)

3. When we get old, under the ACA they will decide to not spend money on life-saving operations for people over 80 (speechless on that one).

4) The reason they don't want to fix the borders is because immigrants are all going to vote for Obama, and they have been promised free health care when they get here (nope, and nope).

They took my stunned silence as complicity, and started debating the fine points of keeping the poor off Medicaid. I pretended to need something from my car and got the heck out of there.

What did I learn? That we benefits professionals have significant communication challenges in breaking through the years of misinformation and mistrust out there, to try to explain a complex (and poorly written) law to a hostile public. 

And, more importantly, that we need to do constant field research on what our target audiences know and think so we can do a better communication job. 

This week has been a great time to get started on that task.