Should $300 Million Be Spent Each Year on Obamacare Outreach? (H.R. 4784)

What is H.R. 4784?

(Updated March 20, 2019)

This bill — known as the ACA OUTREACH Act — would make a $1.2 billion investment over a four-year period in order to fund outreach activities by the federal health insurance marketplaces, state-run health insurance marketplaces, and local advocacy organizations to encourage health coverage enrollment — particularly among minority, rural, and underserved communities, people with disabilities, and young adults.

This bill would appropriate $300 million per year for ACA navigator grants and outreach and promotional activities for the next four fiscal years. Each year, it provides:

• $100 million for grants to navigator programs, which provide funding to organizations that educate consumers and facilitate enrollment during the Annual Open Enrollment Periods;

• $100 million for outreach and promotional activities by the federal government in states with a federally-facilitated health insurance marketplace; and

• $100 million for grants to states with a state-based marketplace to enhance outreach activities.

It’d also require that outreach and promotional activities specifically target populations that are most likely to be uninsured, such as young adults, African-Americans, Hispanics, and low-income Americans.

This bill’s full title is the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Outreach for the Uninsured, Transformative Recruitment, and Enrollment Action for Compassionate Healthcare (OUTREACH) Act.

Argument in favor

Obamacare marketing has been massively underfunded by the Trump administration, and it’s necessary to put more funds into helping people enroll in health insurance to expand health insurance coverage and stabilize the marketplaces.

Argument opposed

The navigator programs that this bill seeks to fund are poorly run and inefficient. There’s also evidence that funds meant for ACA outreach may have been misspent — so there’s a possibility that funds appropriated under this bill might suffer the same issue.

Impact

Insurance purchasers; uninsured populations; ACA marketplaces; navigator programs; ACA promotional activities; and the ACA.

Cost of H.R. 4784

A CBO cost estimate is unavailable.

Additional Info

In-Depth: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) introduced this bill to increase federal funding for outreach activities by the federal health insurance marketplaces, state-run health insurance marketplaces, and local advocacy organizations to encourage health coverage enrollment, particularly among minority, rural, and underserved communities, people with disabilities, and young adults: 

“Our health care system is under attack by a president, administration, and Republican-controlled Congress that – after numerous failed attempts to repeal Obamacare – are sabotaging it for political gain. My legislation seeks to reverse their vindictive efforts to undermine and de-stabilize our health care system by ensuring that all consumers are provided with the information they need to make timely and well-informed decisions when purchasing health coverage through the federal and state-run marketplaces… I am proud to introduce legislation that not only increases funding for promotional activities… but also takes steps to increase enrollment in underserved communities, lower health care premiums, and ensure a stable health insurance marketplace nationwide.”

Judicial Watch, an American conservative activist group, calls this bill a “preposterous measure” to fund a “fraud-infested Obamacare ‘outreach’ program” that the organization contends is neither effective nor well-run:

“The Obamacare navigator program was rife with fraud and corruption and Judicial Watch sued HHS back in 2014 to obtain records that the agency refused to provide under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In 2013, the Obama administration gave dozens of leftists organizations a whopping $67 million to help people ‘navigate’ health insurance exchanges that weren’t even fully established. In a ‘culturally competent manner’ the so-called navigators were tasked with helping people shop for and enroll in plans that would eventually be available on the federal government market places. The money was divided between 105 mostly leftist groups that assisted and recruited the uninsured to sign up for coverage and understand their options… Some of the navigator money went to a labor front group called Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York headed by an illegal immigrant activist named Maria Marroquin. The group received navigator funds shortly after Marroquin, an illegal alien from Peru, had been arrested for participating in disruptive demonstrations protesting the deportation of fellow undocumented immigrants and demanding amnesty. Besides the outrage of hiring an illegal immigrant to promote a U.S. government program, it’s equally disturbing to know that navigators have access to the sensitive personal information of healthcare enrollees… Navigator funds also went to a nonprofit (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)) with such a huge history of corruption that Congress issued a federal funding ban.”

This bill has been referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health with the support of 38 cosponsors, all of whom are Democrats.