WASHINGTON -- Advertisements encouraging people to sign up for health insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law would have to specify that taxpayers paid for the ad under legislation filed by Arkansas' entire U.S. House delegation Monday.
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack's office announced in a news release that he and the other three Arkansas Republicans in the House joined 14 House members in filing the bill.
The Truth in Obamacare Advertising Act would require printed, audio, video or Internet advertising about the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to state if it is funded either directly by federal taxes or through user fees.
"This bill brings light and transparency to the administration's continued use of tax dollars to pay for propaganda ads to prop up Obamacare," Womack of Rogers said in a statement.
The news release points to the president's 2015 federal fiscal-year budget request, which states that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers much of the Affordable Care Act, will spend more than $702 million in user fees and a total of $773 million on consumer outreach and education for the insurance marketplaces created by the act.
U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman of Hot Springs said people should know how the ads are being paid for.
"This legislation shines a light on the use of tax dollars to support a health care law that has done nothing but hurt Arkansas taxpayers, inflate our debt, and decrease the quality of health care," he said in a statement. "When Obamacare commercials go on television and radio, residents across the Fourth District deserve to know that their tax dollars were used to pay for it."
U.S. Rep. French Hill of Little Rock said in a statement: "Hardworking Americans should be fully aware of how their tax dollars are being used to promote the President's failed health care law, and this bill ensures transparency and accountability of this excessive government spending."
The Arkansas Insurance Department has estimated that up to 500,000 Arkansans were uninsured before the Affordable Care Act became law. About half were expected to have income levels below 138 percent of the federal poverty level, which would qualify them to use Medicaid funds to purchase insurance under Arkansas' private option.
As of the end of December, 233,041 Arkansans had enrolled in health insurance on the exchange, which is jointly run by the state and federal government, according to the Insurance Department. Of those, 188,083 got insurance through the private option and 44,958 people have purchased plans through the regular exchange.
During the 2014 legislative session, Arkansas lawmakers barred state agencies from using funds to advertise or promote the private-option program or the exchange. That prompted the state Insurance Department to end federally funded contracts with state agencies, nonprofits and private companies that had employed more than 500 outreach workers to work one-on-one with consumers to help with enrollment.
Between July 1, 2013, and June 30, 2014, the Arkansas Insurance Department used $10 million in federal grant money to mount an advertising campaign, including billboards and television commercials, aimed at encouraging people to sign up on the regular exchange and to contract with the outreach workers, according to the department.
Metro on 01/27/2015