Resources available to employers to navigate tough health care choices

In the aftermath of the election, businesses everywhere are faced with implementation of the Affordable Care Act, of which several hundred pages of regulations have already come out. McKeown said that for the 2,400-page legislation, at least 100,000 pages of regulations can be expected.

"Nothing in the way of regulations is easy to decipher," he said. "It is really hard for people to analyze that on their own."

The Salt Lake Chamber's toolbox was developed by a number of key players in the health care industry and the health and wellness sector. The services it provides, McKeown said, are meant to help businesses offset some of the significant increases, as well as interpret territory that may be unfamiliar to anyone outside the industry.

"Medical practice is going to change," he said. "It is going to be driven more by the economy than it is by the simple passage of a piece of legislation.

"The economy will dictate to us that we are unable to sustain the entitlements we've created. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are all in jeopardy as they presently exist, and we will have to reconstruct those models in ways that change the incentives and change the modeling of them," McKeown said.

Anything that can make the process easier, he said, shouldn't be overlooked.

Contributing: Richard Piatt

E-mail: wleonard@desnews.com, Twitter: wendyleonards