Rep. Johnson Denounces Trump Administration’s Action to Pull ACA Marketplace Ads, With The Goal of Harming Enrollment

DECATUR, GA – Today, Rep. Hank Johnson (GA-04) denounced the Trump Administration's action to immediately halt all advertising and other outreach activities for the ACA Marketplaces by HHS in the critical last few days of Open Enrollment.

"This action by the Trump Administration is ridiculous, and is designed to undermine the ACA Marketplaces in 2017," said Rep. Johnson. "The Administration has issued this order during the critical last days before the January 31 enrollment deadline, when enrollment usually surges. As health experts have pointed out, pulling this advertising now could result in reduced enrollment and could make the Marketplaces less healthy, with fewer young people signing up."

This destructive action by the Administration will actually waste, not save, taxpayer dollars – because the government had already purchased the ads that were going to run.

The White House order is designed to undermine enrollment in one of the two weeks of the enrollment season that has the largest surge of consumers signing up. In the three years since the Marketplaces began, the final day of enrollment has been the second-biggest day of enrollment. (It is, topped only by December 31, the deadline for people seeking coverage effective January 1.)

Also, the last week of January has always tended to draw younger enrollees, who often wait until the very last minute to sign up. For the last week of the sign-up period, HHS had planned a major advertising campaign specifically aimed at younger adults. It is this advertising campaign that is being halted. If there end up being fewer young adults in the Marketplaces, the risk pools in the Marketplaces would be less healthy – destabilizing the Marketplaces for the future.

Before this action, enrollment in the 2017 Marketplaces had been going well. As of December 24, more than 11.5 million people nationwide had signed up for 2017 Marketplace plans, higher than the same time last year. More than a half million Georgians have health insurance through the marketplace today. Of the counties that make up Congressional District 4 – DeKalb, Gwinnett, Rockdale and Newton counties – more than 138,000 residents have health insurance through the marketplaces.

"This action by the Administration is a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Affordable Care Act," concluded Rep. Johnson. "While Democrats are working to ensure more and more people have affordable health coverage, Republicans are once again trying to undermine the progress that has been made to ensure 20 million more Americans have health coverage and to bring us back to the days of the broken health care system that existed before the ACA was enacted."

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