{"id":20437,"date":"2017-01-27T05:02:14","date_gmt":"2017-01-27T05:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=20437"},"modified":"2017-01-27T05:02:14","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T05:02:14","slug":"white-house-stops-ads-outreach-for-last-days-of-2017-aca-enrollment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/white-house-stops-ads-outreach-for-last-days-of-2017-aca-enrollment.html","title":{"rendered":"White House stops ads, outreach for last days of 2017 ACA enrollment"},"content":{"rendered":"
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White House stops ads, outreach for last days of 2017 ACA enrollment<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The White House on Thursday ordered federal health officials to immediately halt all advertising and other outreach activities for the critical final days in which Americans can sign up for 2017 health coverage through Affordable Care Act marketplaces.<\/span><\/p>\n

The directive stunned some staffers within the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a source close to the department who was briefed on the action. Staff members protested to Trump appointees at HHS that the sudden ban on outreach would suppress the enrollment of the most desirable customers \u2014 younger, healthier people who tend to buy coverage at the last minute \u2014 which in turn could raise insurance prices in the future, the source said.<\/span><\/p>\n

An HHS spokesman declined Thursday night to confirm the directive, saying only that HealthCare.gov, the website for the law\u2019s federal insurance exchange, was continuing to accept sign-ups. A federal call center for ACA marketplaces was also still operating, and there was no indication that either would be dismantled before the open-enrollment period\u2019s scheduled end on Tuesday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Three other sources described the written message, speaking on the condition of anonymity about a decision that the new administration has not announced.<\/span><\/p>\n

One source said that the White House instructed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees much of the ACA\u2019s implementation, to withdraw all communication contracts, marketing plans and advertising set for between Thursday and the end of January.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the sources, the move included a halt to ads that the government already had bought. Before the Obama administration ended with Trump\u2019s inauguration, federal health officials paid for several million dollars\u2019 worth of ads for the coming 10 days to encourage people to sign up for ACA health plans, according to one source, who said it was unclear whether the government could recoup that money.<\/span><\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s order could hamper one of the two weeks of the enrollment season, which began in November, that has the greatest surge of consumers signing up. In the three years since the ACA marketplaces began, the final deadline for enrollment has been the second-biggest day, topped only by the December deadline for people seeking coverage effective Jan. 1.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research has shown that the last week of January tends to draw younger enrollees \u2014 an important group, underrepresented in the ACA marketplaces, whose scant use of medical services can help keep insurance prices lower for everyone in a given health plan. For the last week of the sign-up period, HHS had planned a major advertising campaign specifically aimed at that younger cohort, as well as emails and text messages to people who have looked at the HealthCare.gov site in the past but not signed up.<\/span><\/p>\n

On Jan. 10, Obama administration health officials announced that 11.5 million people had signed up for \u2014 or been automatically re-enrolled in \u2014 ACA coverage by Christmas Eve in the 39 states that rely on the federal exchange and similar marketplaces run by the remaining states and District of Columbia. That figure was slightly ahead of a year ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

The halt to these enrollment efforts comes after President Trump signed a broad executive order just hours after his inauguration last week, instructing federal agencies to soften or eliminate unspecified federal rules to ease the \u201ccost, fee, tax, penalty or regulatory burden\u201d the ACA places on consumers, the health-care industry and medical professionals. No rules have been altered yet, though, and Thursday\u2019s ban on enrollment outreach activities was the administration\u2019s first concrete action to undercut the law it has vowed to abolish.<\/span><\/p>\n

As word of the directive seeped out late Thursday, it triggered an immediate backlash from former health officials from the Obama administration and other ACA proponents.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s outrageous. It\u2019s irresponsible,\u201d said Ben Wakana, a senior HHS spokesman until Trump took office. \u201cThey are deliberately undermining open enrollment to try to get a lower enrollment number.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a consumer health lobby, wrote in an email: \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s mean-spirited decision to pull the already-paid-for enrollment ads belies the president\u2019s promise that he wants to cover \u2018everybody\u2019 with health insurance.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/national\/health-science\/white-house-stops-ads-outreach-for-last-days-of-aca-enrollment\/2017\/01\/26\/a2f92682-e420-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html?utm_term=.c1b447e30faa<\/span><\/div>\n

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