Government Healthcare Policy, Business and Technology

Marketing 'Obamacare' With Less Help From the Feds

Stateline: In Florida, the state’s main nonprofit health organization is sending out flyers, running radio spots, and even calling people individually to remind them to sign up for health insurance. In Texas, volunteers are fanning out across the state. And in Utah, with the highest per capita number of children enrolled in “Obamacare” in the nation, officials are squeezing every penny of their diminished budget as they work to advertise the online marketplaces where people can purchase federally subsidized insurance policies.

Somehow it’s working, at least for now. Initial reports from the agency supervising the program show Obamacare sign-ups for the federal marketplace are well ahead of the expected pace, at more than 600,000 in its first four days, leaving experts to wonder whether the volume is about successful advertising, a backlash from all the talk about scrapping Obamacare, officially known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or just an initial rush among the well-informed.

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