Obama To Launch New Health Care Campaign After HealthCare.gov Sees Surge In Successful Registrants
To say that the launch of HealthCare.gov was rocky would be an understatement. But after two months of toiling over fixing the bug-plagued site, the Obama administration seems confident that the site will continue to work properly in the coming weeks. So confident, that is, that the White House is set to launch a campaign to draw more users to the site and more attention to the benefits of enrolling in the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces.
"The White House will take the lead in emphasizing a different benefit each day until the Dec. 23 enrollment deadline for Jan. 1 coverage. The daily message will be amplified through press events and social media by Democratic members of Congress, the Democratic National Committee, congressional campaign committees and advocacy organizations, officials said,” wrote Politico.
According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Pres. Barack Obama will announce an effort to rebuild support for the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) starting with a kick-off event at the White House today. Obama reportedly invited Americans who have already benefitted from the administration’s health care reforms, which have steadily been implemented since the measure was signed into law in 2010. This new push for support will focus on touting the advantages of the Act, which include preventing insurance companies from discriminating against those with pre-existing conditions and giving coverage to millions of uninsured who previously couldn’t afford it, according to the Associated Press.
"We are very mindful of making sure that consumers who want coverage starting in January are able to get it," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
The administration met its November 30 deadline to fix the glitches that initially plagued the site. With new features and an updated design to the site, HealthCare.gov can now handle about 50,000 users at any given time. According to the New York Daily News, the site was on track to hit 800,000 users on Monday. The White House has been reinvigorated by the high traffic coming to the site and hopes that this last minute effort will mean real results for millions of Americans.
"Our goal is to make sure that everybody who wants to enroll through the exchanges is able to do so during the open enrollment period,” said Carney. “We believe those numbers will be sufficient and that the pool of people who enroll will be of the necessary diversity to make sure that the ACA works as envisioned."