The Trump administration defended a move to pull $4 million to $5 million in television and radio ads promoting Obamacare, pointing to the failures of the controversial law.
The decision reported late Thursday has drawn criticism from former Obama administration officials who said the lack of outreach could lead to lower enrollment before the open enrollment period ends Jan. 31. But the Trump administration said the move was made to ensure a more efficient campaign was run.
“We aren’t going to continue spending millions of taxpayer dollars promoting a failed government program,” a representative for the Department of Health and Human Services said. “Once an assessment was made, we pulled back the most expensive and least efficient part of this massive ad campaign which was set to run over the weekend.”
The Obama administration contracted for $75 million in ads with a private firm, and the Trump administration is pulling back $4 million to $5 million that will be returned to the U.S. Treasury.
The move sparked a fierce pushback from former Obama administration officials.
Lori Lodes, a former HHS communications director, said on Twitter that the pullback applies to other forms of outreach such as e-mails, Facebook and Twitter.
But the Trump administration said that traditional routes to find open enrollment information such as the healthcare.gov site, e-mails, robo calls, Twitter and other online platforms remain available.
HHS personnel also continue to answer e-mails and phone calls regarding enrollment questions, the administration said.
Insurers criticized the move on Friday, saying the ads help draw in enrollees and keeping Obamacare markets stable.
“At a time when the individual market faces challenges, we need as many people as possible to participate — so that costs go down for everyone. Balancing out the risk pool is an important action that can be taken now to help stabilize the market, improve affordability, and send strong signals as health plans develop their products for 2018,” said Kristine Grow, senior vice president of communications for America’s Health Insurance Plans, the lobbying group for the insurance industry.
The decision comes a few days before the deadline for open enrollment.
As of Jan. 14, more than 8.8 million people signed up for 2017 coverage on healthcare.gov. That figure doesn’t include the signups from the 12 state-run exchanges.
As of Dec. 24, 2.8 million people signed up for coverage on the state exchanges.
The Obama administration aimed to get 13.8 million people to select plans during open enrollment and about 11 million to pay for the plans.
