Open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act insurance exchange on Healthcare.gov begins November 1. But Donald Trump is trying to stop the public from hearing about it.
Trump's Department of Health and Human Services just cut Healthcare.gov advertising by 90% and funding for consumer assistance by nearly 50%, meaning the essential outreach work needed to enroll the people necessary for keeping the health care exchange thriving is in jeopardy.1
These public education campaigns are incredibly important to make sure people know how to get health care, so UltraViolet Action is stepping in to help fill the gap with our own advertising campaign. You can chip in $5?
Outreach and advertising for the health care exchange are more important than ever this year. The enrollment period this year was cut sharply from what it was last year--ending on December 15 instead of January 31. And after Congress spent the first half of the year trying to kill Obamacare, many people have no idea where the law stands now.2
Even people who do know that the ACA is still in place might not know that the law applies to them. Even when the law had been established for years, only about a third of the population knew whether Medicaid was expanded in their state or that pre-existing conditions no longer exclude them from coverage, and more than 60% of adults didn't know the income level that would qualify them for insurance subsidies.3
Most important, we know that there is a direct connection between the number of advertisements published about Healthcare.gov and the number of people who sign up.4 And so does Trump--he knows that the less the Affordable Care Act is advertised, the fewer people will join, and the more likely it is to "implode" as he predicted.