Obamacare group slashes staff

The main national organization promoting Obamacare enrollment is cutting 100 jobs amid a major retrenchment as key funders turn to other health care priorities.

It’s the beginning of the end for Enroll America, which was set up by liberal advocates of the Affordable Care Act to run a sophisticated, political-style campaign to persuade Americans to get covered. The group, led by veterans of President Barack Obama’s campaigns and administration, was never intended to last forever, but a precipitous drop in funding forced it to scale back to half of its peak size after only two seasons of Obamacare sign-up. That’s a far more rapid throttling back than its founders anticipated.

The move comes as even some strong advocates of the law have lowered their coverage expectations for the first few years of the law, partly because of the resistance in many GOP-led states. With Enroll America taking a less prominent role, local community groups, health insurers, hospitals and clinics will have to pick up some of the outreach and marketing work.

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