The Trump administration significantly cut down on the volume and effectiveness of communications about Obamacare’s open enrollment period, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Citing internal documents it had obtained, the Post described notable changes to emails sent by the Trump administration advertising Obamacare’s open enrollment period, during which time anyone can sign up for insurance coverage through the law’s individual marketplace. This year, that period runs from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15.
The Post reported that, this year, emails advertising the period went “only to people with current health plans through marketplaces created under the law,” leaving out the majority of the roughly 20 million consumers known to the government, who used to have coverage or had otherwise explored HealthCare.gov.
And the emails that were sent, according to the Post, were stripped of perhaps their most convincing element, determined by the Obama administration through extensive research: cost savings.
Whereas a 2016 open enrollment email advertised that “[n]ew, better or more affordable plans may be available to you,” and “[y]ou could save money by switching to a new plan,” an email sent last week and obtained by the Post lacked any mention of cost savings.
The changes to the open enrollment emails contribute to the Trump administration’s already rocky administration of the law.
At the end of August, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a 90 percent cut in the department’s budget to promote Obamacare and educate the public about it. And last month, Trump ended key payments to insurance companies, called cost-sharing reductions, meant to subsidize insurance coverage for lower income people.
