The Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has arranged to pay public relations firm Weber Shandwick an additional $8 million to promote enrollment in ObamaCare’s health insurance exchanges. Advertising Age reports that the campaign will aim to “convince skeptical — or simply confused — Americans the Affordable Care Act [a.k.a. ObamaCare] is good for them and convince them to enroll in a health plan.”
This, after HHS already paid them $3 million to do the same thing, and paid PR firm Porter Novelli $20 million before that.
The multimillion dollar PR offensive is reportedly a last-ditch effort to bolster the image of the health insurance exchanges, centerpieces of ObamaCare which have proven unpopular. The exchanges were originally expected to launch in October of 2013, but lackluster enrollment means it’s unlikely the Administration will meet that goal. Additionally, while the Administration assumed most states would take responsibility for their own exchanges, 33 states opted to let the federal government handle some or all of the responsibility for their exchanges – and a lion’s share of the expense.
Even ObamaCare’s supporters admit that the public’s view of the president’s signature legislation is dismal.
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