The Biden Blitz Is Coming;

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

3-9-2021

The Biden blitz is coming;

The new president is planning more media, a major speech, an address to Congress and a road show featuring VP Kamala Harris — all with an eye on promoting the massive, soon-to-be passed Covid bill.

President Joe Biden spent the first months of his presidency hunkered down as he worked on getting more vaccines into people’s arms and a massive bill to deal with the pandemic to his desk.

With that $1.9 trillion legislation set to clear Congress and the pace of vaccinations picking up, the White House is preparing to embark on a new, far more public-facing phase.

Biden is scheduled to deliver his first prime-time address as president Thursday, which will focus on the Covid crisis.
Later this month, he’ll hold the first press conference of his young presidency. He’s committed to making a still-unscheduled address to Congress.

And officials are busy preparing for a sprawling sales campaign designed to draw attention to the benefits of the Covid-relief package.

Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others will hit the road to tout, among other things: the $1,400 checks, how billions of dollars in the bill will reopen schools, and the investments being made in increasing the numbers of vaccinations.

“There are a lot of people who use the term ‘victory lap’ in a derogatory way. I’ve already heard people saying that Biden is about to take a victory lap. Well, that’s a lot of crap,” said House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close Biden ally.

“One of the—if not the biggest—mistakes that Obama made, in my opinion, was getting the Recovery Act done and not explaining to people what he had done.”

Biden and top administration officials acknowledged they’ll have to do more to ensure the benefits of their package sink into the public’s consciousness. And they’ve spent weeks carefully planning how best to begin their efforts while much of the country remains consumed by the pandemic.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday that once the American Rescue Plan is signed,
“We will need to do some work and use our best voices.”

The upcoming sales job will require Biden to assume a new posture: fewer scripted events and private dealings with lawmakers, more interactions with the press and appearances before the public.
That will give the president opportunities to make more emotional appeals, such as highlighting older family members finally being able to get together
with their grandchildren.

Biden enters this new phase in an enviable position. Support for the coronavirus legislation is sky high, as is confidence in the president’s handling of the pandemic.

"I think they start from a very popular place,” said Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary when the 44th president passed his own recovery act.
“This legislation from the polling looks more popular than the 2009 bill.
The real question now is driving that awareness.
They should be reminding people as often as they can, what is in it for them. This is the foundation of essentially what they are going to run on in four years."

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

4-9-2021

Biden Administration Announces 500,000 New Sign-Ups At HealthCare.gov
Promoting enrollment, something the Trump administration never did, seems to be paying off — and helping a lot of people..

So this is what it looks like when the people in charge of the Affordable Care Act want it to reach as many people as possible.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday announced that, between mid-February and the end of March, more than 500,000 Americans had signed up for coverage on HealthCare.gov, the federal online marketplace that the Affordable Care Act created for people buying insurance on their own.

That timeframe corresponds with the first six weeks of a “special enrollment period” that the Biden administration created. Normally, enrollment at HealthCare.gov is confined to the last few weeks of the calendar year, as it typically is for employer policies.

People who lose coverage because of unemployment, divorce or other major life events have always been able to get coverage at any time, even if it’s outside the normal enrollment window.
But with the pandemic highlighting the importance of health care, and so many people out of work, the Biden administration decided to open up enrollment to all comers again.

“Access to quality, affordable health care is essential — especially as we tackle the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said Wednesday.

Initially, the Biden administration had said that HealthCare.gov would be open to general enrollment until May 15. Later, it said the period would extend all the way until Aug. 15.

It makes a difference to welcome people into ACA health coverage rather than restrict it while also trying to overturn the law altogether.

The Biden administration has done more than simply make enrollment easier. It has also promoted coverage aggressively, though online and broadcast advertising, in order to reach people who are eligible for deeply discounted insurance but might not know about it.

The promotions frequently tout new assistance that is now available because of the American Rescue Plan, the COVID-19 relief program that Democrats in Congress passed and Biden signed in March.

Of the roughly 29 million people who don’t have health insurance today, about 6.8 million now qualify for coverage at HealthCare.gov with zero premiums, according to HHS estimates, while 1.3 million could get policies for less than $50 a month.
(More are eligible for free or deeply discounted coverage though Covered California, NY State of Health and other state-run versions of the marketplaces.)

Notably, the 500,000 enrollments HHS reported were all people who signed up before the new assistance was available. (They’ll still be able to get the deeper discounts, as will those who signed up for coverage previously.)

“With the increased premium help in the American Rescue Plan and a new outreach effort, the Biden Administration has an opportunity here to reverse the trend of increasing numbers of people uninsured that we saw in the Trump years,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, told HuffPost.
“It makes a difference to welcome people into ACA health coverage rather than restrict it while also trying to overturn the law altogether.”

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