Retirees In Enemy Territory Go Door-to-Door On Obamacare

10 States

Enroll America is concentrating its efforts on 10 states, including Texas, Florida and New Jersey, many of them with elected officials who’ve shown little interest in promoting the law. The Washington-based group, led by a former Obama campaign field director, has organized 3,000 volunteers so far. It’s working with local partners, from churches to health clinics to barbershops, to advance the message.

The goal is to contact potential enrollees at least a half- dozen times, said Mimi Garcia, the group’s director in Texas.

“It might be somebody on their doorstep,” Garcia said in a telephone interview. “And then they go to church, and their pastor is talking about it. There’s a table with information afterwards at the Sunday social, and then they’re going to CVS and there’s info about it at the pharmacy. It’s all of these different messages that are going to make an impact.”

The effort, like Obama’s political campaigns, is driven by target lists culled from opinion surveys and carefully mined consumer data.

In New Jersey, Christie has vetoed bills seeking to set up a state insurance exchange. That’s put the state among 27 that have refused to run their own markets, instead leaving the work to the Obama administration and its allies.

Pitching Englewood

Lee and Cesard took the pitch to Englewood recently, knocking on doors in a neighborhood of converted bungalows and aging Colonials. They carried maps with red dots showing where the uninsured lived. Color-coded charts explained the law’s new insurance subsidies for consumers.

Their script from Enroll America didn’t mention “Obamacare” or the “Affordable Care Act,” potential red flags in the political war over the health-care overhaul. Instead, it stressed the “new health coverage options that will make it easier to afford quality health insurance.”

Lee and Cesard both get their health care through Medicare, the U.S.-funded program for the elderly. Cesard, a retired engineer, said the kind of security he gets from the U.S. plan seems to be drifting away for many Americans.