Television viewers are seeing more commercials about health insurance so far this year than they did the same period last year during Obamacare’s open enrollment, a new study reports.
According to the Wesleyan Media Project, TV commercials about health insurance during the first 37 days of open enrollment were up 51 percent over the same window in 2016. This occurred despite the Trump administration slashing the advertising budget about open enrollment by 90 percent, to $10 million, from where it was under former President Barack Obama.
Researchers noted non-governmental advertisers, in particular health insurance companies, appear to have boosted their own advertising. The majority of these ads, however, did not specifically mention healthcare.gov. In one instance, the ad notifies viewers they can skip the healthcare.gov website and buy directly from an insurer. This group of people tends to make more than the federal cutoff to receive assistance to pay for their subsidies, which is $48,240 a year for an individual or $94,400 for a family of four.
Researchers were unable to find any government funded ads about healthcare.gov so far, compared with 15,781 ads last year.
“Insurance company advertising is not a replacement for federal advertising, which in the past drove enrollees explicitly to healthcare.gov,” Erika Franklin Fowler, co-director of the Wesleyan Media Project, said in a statement. “However, more ads in a shorter window make it more likely that consumers will encounter health insurance messaging on television, which may help to boost awareness and encourage enrollment generally, complimenting other efforts to spread the word.”
Open enrollment ends Friday, and the latest-available data show nearly 4.7 million people have signed up for 2018 Obamacare plans.
It’s unclear whether total advertising this year will outpace other years. The Trump administration cut his year’s open enrollment in half, from 90 days to 45 days, meaning it’s possible the total amount of advertising viewers see may turn out to be the same, just packed into a shorter period of time. If commercials during the final eight days continue at the same pace as during the first 37 days, however, then total advertising this year would outpace last year.
The Wesleyan Media Project and health policy professor Sarah Gollust from the University of Minnesota have been tracking advertising on Obamacare since 2013, the first year of open enrollment. In studying advertising they look at both national cable, national network, and local broadcast TV in 210 media markets, breaking down ads paid for by the federal government, by states, by private companies, and by advocates.
This year, 338,224 ads about health insurance aired during the first 37 days of open enrollment, compared with 223,047 ads over the same period last year. This year also outpaces previous open enrollments during the first 37 days. For instance, 104,601 ads aired over that period the year Obamacare’s open enrollment kicked off, and more than doubled to 250,489 during the second year and fell slightly to 226,980 during the third year.
Researchers say insurance companies and other non-governmental entities like advocates have always tended to make up the majority of advertisers encouraging enrollment in a health insurance plan.
