The Department of Health and Human Services is so desperate to convince Americans to sign up for the healthcare exchanges that it’s campaigning at every which way and turn – including the national remembrance day of the late Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In a press release from the HHS press office Friday, the embattled government agency allegedly asserted that King described ‘inequality in healthcare’ as the “most shocking and inhumane” form of justice, essentially making him a proponent of the Affordable Care Act. (It should be noted, however, that several legal scholars have been unable to confirm via a primary document that King ever made that statement).
The release then details how uninsured Americans suffer from a lack of affordable healthcare.
The fact that the HHS would feel the need to campaign for the program on a day of remembrance only goes to further highlight how much the program has struggled since the marketplaces opened in October – and became law earlier this month. Not only have enrollment numbers been far lower than projected, but just one in four applications received before Jan. 1 came from Americans under the age of 35. That number is key because the exchanges need to have at least 40 percent of enrollees come from that age group to remain financially solvent.
Nor is this the first time that the Obama administration and the HHS has campaigned around a holiday. The administration launched expensive, multi-media campaigns late last year to encourage Americans to “talk about Obamacare” around the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner tables and enroll in the Obamacare exchanges as a resolution for the new year.
