Campaign Action
Wasting $5 million in taxpayer money already spent, popular vote loser Donald Trump has stopped outreach efforts to get people signed up on Obamacare before the final deadline of January 31.
The Obama administration had already paid for the advertising. An HHS spokesperson told Demko that the Trump administration had decided to cancel the final installment, worth about $5 million, in order “to look for efficiencies where they exist.”
The timing is critical. The open enrollment period for 2017 ends next week, on Jan. 31, and traditionally, signups have surged in the final days before the deadline.
Those late signups don’t merely boost the program’s enrollment numbers. They also help insurers to hold down premiums.
That’s because insurance depends on premiums from healthy people to underwrite the medical bills of the small minority with serious health problems. And people in relatively good health are precisely the types to postpone enrolling until the very last minute.
Enrollments have spiked in the final days of every sign-up period, and young people have been a big chunk of the late enrollees—last year they were 37 percent of the people signing up in the last week.
It's actually possible that Trump didn't do this entirely out of spite.
Friday, Jan 27, 2017 · 10:54:25 PM +00:00
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Joan McCarter
Well, look at this.
The Trump administration has reversed plans to scrap all Obamacare outreach in the finals days of the law's enrollment period, a day after the move sparked outcry from the law's supporters and health insurers.
HHS officials on Friday said automatic phone calls and other online and digital outreach — including Twitter messages and emails — would continue through the Jan. 31 deadline for obtaining coverage.
Officials also said they were unable to pull back some HealthCare.gov radio and TV advertising that had been purchased by the Obama administration. HHS was able to cancel about $4 million to $5 million in ads, a spokesman said.
Outcry is a good thing.
Republicans have been desperate to find a way to blame President Obama for the destruction of Obamacare they're about to create. That's part of what's behind House Speaker Paul Ryan's incessant lies that Obamacare is in a "death spiral." It's not. It's actually pretty healthy right now.
So Republicans are sabotaging it. Trump signed the executive order last week telling the government to stop enforcing the individual mandate, taking away much of the incentive for this same group of healthy young people to sign up. Now they've axed the advertising telling people how much they can save in health insurance by using the exchange. If Republicans can keep this group from signing up, they can get their “death spiral” to impact the law.
Don't let them. Share this ad with everyone you know between now and next Tuesday. Tell Trump "fuck you" in the most meaningful way possible.