By Evan Falchuk

Judging by the angry reactions Congressional and administration officials are running into as they return to their districts to talk about health care reform, maybe it is.

But does it have to be?

We already know health care is the benefit Americans value the most from their jobs.  Still, companies make important changes to their health benefits all the time, and have been doing it at an increasing pace.  So it’s not impossible.  The trouble comes when an employer does a bad job communicating changes and getting the support of employees.  When they don’t, you see scenes like the angry constituent meetings I linked to above.

I think President Obama has made some of the common mistakes companies make when they don’t communicate benefits changes well.

When he took office in January, he promised sweeping changes to our health care system.  But he decided to leave the details to a group of Congressional committees.  And so from the beginning, Americans have been faced with uncertainty about what was going to happen.  What were these committees going to come up with?  The questions most important to employees were left unanswered.  Things like – will I be able to stay with my doctor?  Will someone from the government decide what kind of care I can get?  What will it all cost?

The President has tried to reassure Americans on each of these fronts.  But in the absence of a plan of his own, and in the face of multiple, competing plans in Congress, and the almost daily arguments about one detail or another, it’s hard to know what to believe.

It’s a recipe for creating public anxiety around a deeply personal and emotional issue.

I think of this when I watch videos of constituents complaining that members of Congress haven’t read the 1,000 page bills they have passed.  It’s a fair criticism.  But I suspect these same people are not attending public rallies against the many other unread 1,000-page bills Congress passes.

But this isn’t the point.  There is a special anxiety about health care.  You can make changes to it, but you had better be very smart and cautious about how you do it, and especially about how you communicate what you are planning to do.

Then again, maybe I’m wrong.  Maybe health care is too dangerous of an issue for politicians to touch at all.

What do you think?

UPDATE: Jerry Seib in the Wall Street Journal adds further thoughtful analysis of this issue.