Selling Of Obamacare Begins In Earnest
President Barack Obama tells the New York Times that his plan to build support for the health law is simply to implement it. Meanwhile, high level aides and supporters meet to craft a new message, while volunteers for the nonprofit Enroll America fan out across the country to tell the uninsured about new coverage options.
The New York Times: Obama Intends To Let Health Care Law Prove Critics Wrong By Succeeding
President Obama waved aside persistent Republican criticism of his signature health care law last week, saying in a New York Times interview that the overhaul would become vastly more popular once "all the nightmare scenarios" from his adversaries proved wrong. The president accused Republicans of "all kinds of distortions" about the legislation. He said bluntly that his administration had a simple plan to build support for the law, which continues to be viewed with suspicion by large numbers of Americans. "We're going to implement it," he said (Shear and Calmes, 7/27).
Politico: Obama Aides, Supporters Huddle To Agree On Obamacare Message
While President Obama was on the road talking about the economy this week, top aides and supporters were huddling for a major strategy session to coordinate a new, more aggressive message on Obamacare. Meeting Wednesday at Democratic National Committee headquarters over an Obamacare message testing poll taken by the Service Employees International Union, they hashed out a simple strategy, but one they agreed needs to quickly become unanimous among them and other Obama supporters. Republicans are winning the rhetorical and political argument because they're the only ones keeping focus on the parts of the law they feel are vulnerable (Novere, 7/26).
Kaiser Health News: Obamacare Canvassers Seek Florida's Uninsured
Tammy Spencer did a double take when she read the address on her paper and looked at the house in front of her. Spencer, a volunteer with the nonprofit Enroll America, was spending a hot and humid Saturday morning knocking on doors in this mostly posh South Florida city looking for people without health coverage. She wanted to let them know about new online insurance marketplaces that open for enrollment Oct. 1 (Galewitz, 7/29).
Reuters: Obamacare's Foot Soldiers Train To Enroll The Masses
Nahla Kayali is a foot soldier for Obamacare. She is among the first wave of 2,000 community organizers in California getting trained to persuade more than 1 million uninsured people in the state to sign up for subsidized health coverage under President Barack Obama's reform law (Bernstein, 7/26).
The Washington Post: Obamacare Spurs Creation Of Thousands Of New Jobs To Explain Law
Amid a torrent of speculation about the impact of Obamacare on the economy, one thing seems clear: The law is spurring a raft of new jobs in call centers, IT companies and community organizations designed to help Americans understand the complex health law and navigate the new insurance marketplaces (Kim, 7/26).