Washington Post: Her clipboard said the man who lived in the pink stucco apartment building a few blocks from the hotel-lined beach might not have health insurance. So Laura Botero climbed the darkened staircase to the second floor and knocked on the door.
Eduardo Devine, 49, an unemployed beach waiter in black, square-framed glasses, peeked into the dim hallway. He confirmed he had been without coverage since he was laid off a month ago, and his face lit up when Botero mentioned “Obamacare.”
For the health-care law to succeed, millions of Americans must sign up for insurance. It could be a tough sell.
The efforts come in advance of Oct. 1, when the law’s health-care marketplaces are set to open. “I just heard about it on the news, but I don’t know how it works,” he said, taking a pamphlet. “It will help. That’s all I know.”
It was a small but critical victory for Botero, a volunteer for Enroll America, a nonprofit group that is fielding a small army to spread the word about Obamacare. In recent weeks, President Obama’s signature health-care law entered a new phase as hundreds of advocates began the arduous task of identifying the uninsured and coaxing them, one by one, to sign up for coverage.
For the law to succeed, groups such as Enroll America, whose officials include several veterans of Obama campaigns, will need to cajole millions of Americans, including many healthy ones, to enter the insurance market. It could be a tough sell. Confusion about the law is rampant. The online insurance sites, which open for enrollment Oct. 1, could be tricky. Some people who rarely need medical care might view even low-cost health plans as too pricey.And while advocates say that knocking on doors is one way to overcome these challenges, skeptics point out that such canvassing, which is modeled on successful political campaigns, is untested for a complex national program such as the Affordable Care Act. It’s also labor-intensive; Botero’s group, Enroll America, expects to talk to each person seven to eight times to encourage enrollment in a health plan.
“Obviously, we’ve got to find the uninsured, but we’ve got plenty of examples of finding the uninsured and letting them slip away,” said Stan Dorn, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute and a supporter of the law. He said such campaigns work only if the volunteers take the extra step of filling out the people’s forms — an even more laborious role that Enroll America does not plan to undertake.
Enroll America and other groups, including insurance companies and state health departments, are nevertheless taking their pitches directly to people’s doorsteps.
Starting next year, virtually all Americans must carry health insurance or face a fine. But advocates do not expect the penalty, which will start at $95 for the first year and rise to $695 or more annually for an individual in 2016, to be enough of a motivation. That is why they are relying on Enroll America and other groups to make the hard sell to people who, for various reasons, may not be eager to enroll.
A particular challenge is that 2.7 million of the new enrollees must be cheap-to-insure young and healthy people; otherwise, there will be too many older, sicker people and costs and premiums will rise.
If anyone comes knocking on my door asking me to enroll, I’ll have two questions for them:
If this is so good for me, then:
1. Why is Obama throwing Capitol Hill a helping hand on ObamaCare?
And,
2. Why does the IRS chief say he’d rather not switch to the ObamaCare plan?
If these guys don’t want it, then why is it so great for me?
DCG
