The Trump administration did not violate lobbying laws by putting out social media posts blasting Obamacare, the Government Accountability Office has concluded.
Democratic lawmakers had asked the agency to take a look at the case, in which the Department of Health and Human Services released a video on Twitter and YouTube of small business owners discussing how they were harmed by Obamacare. The lawmakers alleged that HHS officials violated a law that bans appropriated federal dollars from being used to lobby proposed legislation.
The GAO disagreed, saying in a report released late Tuesday that the videos did not call on viewers to contact Congress.
The videos had been released around the same time that congressional Republicans tried to overhaul the healthcare law, formally known as the Affordable Care Act. The effort failed, though the GOP did later pass legislation to zero out a fine on the uninsured that goes into effect in 2019.
GAO had also taken a look at the @HHSMedia and @HHSGov accounts, which sent out media appearances by then-HHS Secretary Tom Price discussing the replacement plan for Obamacare. Price resigned last year a Politico investigation revealed he used jets to travel for work.
The Trump administration made other changes on Obamacare, writing on the website where people buy health insurance that the law had “done damage” and “created great burdens for many Americans.” Officials also ended funding toward outreach at the end of open enrollment in 2017, when customers were approaching the deadline to sign up for coverage.
GAO concluded that reducing these funds was within the agency’s discretion, and noted that it carried out the law in other ways, including by continuing to keep the site running.
“In this case, the changes made to the HHS Web sites, the communications on Twitter, and the videos that HHS produced all bore a connection to HHS’s official duties,” GAO wrote in its report.
