Several Obamacare advocates told the Los Angeles Times that they’ve effectively given up relying on the White House for support in reaching out to people about the law and enrolling them in health coverage.
Their vocal frustrations speak to the rift that has grown between the administration and the advocacy community since the botched rollout of HealthCare.gov.
“The refrain we most often hear is: ‘Where is the administration?'” M. Ryan Barker, vice president of the Missouri Foundation for Health, which has been working to support implementation in that state, told the newspaper. “It is very frustrating.”
That frustration extended to lobbying and medical circles, both of which have a business interest in making the law work.
“I have never seen medical providers more dismissive of a White House,” one lobbyist told the Times anonymously.
Even those within the administration’s new messaging push acknowledged that they aren’t certain if the White House is ready for the political fights still to come.
“It’s unclear whether or not they realize that this is not a three-week PR campaign,” one Democratic official said. “There’s a long list of issues, serious issues that are going to come up as part of implementation, where Republicans are going to try to score political points or derail the law. And we have to be ready.”
