Obamacare Includes A Two Billion Dollar A Year Fund To Promote Itself

GREENVILLE, S.C. | BY KENT MASTERSON BROWN | Benswann.com | 9/12/2013 |

One provision of Obamacare worth discussing is Section 4002.[1]  That section appropriates money to the Secretary of HHS to establish a “Prevention and Public Health Fund.”  The ostensible purpose of the fund is “to provide for expanded and sustained national investment in prevention and public health programs to improve health and help restrain the rate of growth in private and public sector health care costs.”

Section 4002, in fact, creates a fund the administration is using for nothing more than propaganda to expand federal influence and control.  What is frightening is the amount of money appropriated.  In 2010 it is $500 million, in 2011, $750 million; in 2012, $1 billion; in 2013, $1.25 billion; in 2014, $1.5 billion; and for 2015 and thereafter, $2 billion!  For Congress to appropriate that much money to promote legislation that kills health care underwriting while raising health care insurance costs through a myriad of new taxes, fees and compliance requirements, is obscene.

Already, evidence of expenditures under this section of Obamacare are in the news.  Obama operatives are setting up symposiums for journalists to learn how to report the implementation of Obamacare.  The Society of American Business Editors and Writers (“SABEW”) is sponsoring such a symposium.  Ostensibly underwritten by the Commonwealth Fund, the SABEW symposium is nothing more than a mechanism for the Obama Administration to instruct the media on how to report Obamacare’s implementation.  The Commonwealth Fund is a long-time supporter of Obamacare.[2]

HHS is funding a $1 million public relations marketing contract to promote Obamacare that will employ Hollywood.  Promotions of Obamacare will appear on primetime television shows, such as Modern Family and Grey’s Anatomy.  Another grant of $15 million to the California Endowment has been made for it to tout Obamacare.  The New American has reported that many of the biggest media companies, the Washington Post, NBC, Reuters, Gannett newspapers, CBS and others have received billions of tax dollars from the Obamacare slush fund to tout the program.  No wonder the mainstream media and Hollywood are in lockstep with Obama and his policies; they are being paid handsomely.[3]

In April 2013 HHS awarded an $8 million public relations contract to Weber Shandwick to “improve the public image” of Obamacare.  It will help HHS “roll out a campaign to convince skeptical – or simply confused – Americans the Affordable Care Act is good for them and convince them to enroll in a health plan.”  The advertising generated by this contract will mirror that created by a $3.2 million grant on educational television where the late Andy Griffith praised Obamacare.[4]

Now it seems the Obama administration is short of cash.  It was reported in the New York Times on April 26, 2013 that Senator Tom Harkin (D. IA) expressed anger at a White House meeting that the Obama administration robbed $332 million from the Public Health and Prevention Fund to spend on Obamacare publicity and promotion.[5]

One of those organizations HHS has committed itself to use to promote Obamacare is “Enroll America,” a non-profit launched in 2011 by Families USA, a supporter of health reform.  Its officers come from Obama’s campaign and executives from Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Blue Shield of California, Kaiser Permanente, CVS Caremark, American Hospital Association and the National Association of Health Underwriters.  The lack of funds has been a serious problem.  To address that, Kathleen Sebelius telephoned the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and H&R Block asking for money.  It has turned into one of the major scandals of the Obama administration.  The anti-deficiency act prohibits Federal officials from soliciting money from private entities.[6]  It turns out Sebelius also called Johnson & Johnson, Ascension Health and Kaiser Permanente to encourage them to “support” Enroll America.[7]

The Fall of 2013 will be interesting; the mass marketing of Obamacare by HHS will be in full swing.  Millions are being spent now to produce television and radio spots and printed advertisements.  Those promotions will “hit” at the same time that high costs of insurance strike everyone’s pocketbook.  We will see who wins.

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