The group is creating everything from refrigerator magnets to online apps. Planned Parenthood sells Obamacare

Planned Parenthood is diving into a new area of education, not without its own controversy: Obamacare.

The group’s more than 750 health centers across the country will be promoting the health law and helping women find out about new coverage options for themselves and their families before — and after — enrollment begins Oct. 1. They’re creating everything from refrigerator magnets to online apps that help people enroll in a health plan. Some affiliates will be applying to become official government-funded “navigators” to give people more hands-on help through the signup process.


Planned Parenthood says its health centers see nearly 3 million patients a year, many of them using the clinics as their primary point of care. More than nine out 10 are under age 40. About half are uninsured.

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So the group sees itself as uniquely placed to reach those women, helping them get covered and serving as messengers to their families and communities. To that end, it’s training clinic staff, printing posters and pamphlets and incorporating information about the law into its educational programs.

It makes sense, but giving Planned Parenthood such a major role in promoting Obamacare brings great risks as well. Republicans in Washington and across the country have long wanted to defund Planned Parenthood and making it a major part of the public relations rollout is already inviting criticism from opponents.

“Planned Parenthood is among the long list of liberal organizations that are expected to receive taxpayer-funded navigator grants. The navigator grants would further enable Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in America, to continue its misuse of taxpayer dollars to [supplement] their big abortion business,” said Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), who says she wants to eliminate the navigator program — for which $54 million in funds will be made available — even without a Planned Parenthood link because it’s “ripe for fraud and abuse” and violations of privacy.

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Former Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who now works with the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony List, had a similar reaction. “Of course, Planned Parenthood wants to see this law implemented,” she said. “It will just put more money in their coffers.”

But some Democratic lawmakers are enthusiastic about Planned Parenthood’s ability to draw in women who can benefit from President Barack Obama’s health law. In fact, Obama himself had urged the organization to take on a role.

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“If Americans don’t know how to access the new benefits and protections that they’re going to receive as we implement this law, then health care reform won’t make much of a difference in their lives,” he said earlier this year when he became the first sitting president to address Planned Parenthood’s national conference.

“We’ve got to spread the word, particularly among women, particularly among young women, who are the ones who are most likely to benefit from these laws. We need all the women who come through your doors telling their children, their husbands and their folks in their neighborhoods about their health care options. … You are all in a unique position to deliver that message because the women you serve know you and they trust you,” he said.

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The organization aims to coordinate national messaging and education with very precise local specifics, according to Eric Ferrero, vice president for communications for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. It’s honing the communication with Enroll America, a nonprofit that’s coordinating a lot of the health law fundraising and messaging, an Enroll America spokeswoman said.

“Our goal is to provide localized information so that if you walk into a health center in Florida, you will know about new insurance options and benefits that are available in that area. We’ll provide the designs and the talking points, and Planned Parenthood affiliates across the country will fill in the information that’s relevant for their communities,” Ferrero said.

Jon Dunn, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino counties in California, said his health centers have run focus groups to see how much the women who walk through the doors already know about the law.

Most don’t know much, even in California, a state that’s embraced the expansion of health coverage.

“We discovered that our patients by and large are very unknowledgeable about health care reform,” he said.

He said nearly all of the 100,000 patients his health centers serve lack insurance, and he estimates about 75,000 will be eligible for Medicaid under the law’s expansion.

That Medicaid link is crucial, said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), a strong supporter of the health law.

“About 12 million uninsured women who are between 19 and 44 are going to be eligible for Medicaid, and a lot of those folks are the folks who go to Planned Parenthood for their primary care already. I think with this program that Planned Parenthood is going to educate people and their eligibility is really important,” she said.

Dunn said his clinics are getting ready.

“We’ve already started now, in anticipation of [the law], doing a number of things to try to make ourselves available as a resource to them,” Dunn said. That includes a website, plastering health centers with window graphics and posters and hiring staff to talk through the law with patients in the waiting room. And they’re working on a mobile app that helps patients enroll in coverage on their smartphone.

Conversing with patients only goes so far toward getting them to actually get online and fill out the forms. So some Planned Parenthood centers will apply to become a navigator or assister — government-funded positions that can offer more hands-on help. That will be a state-by state decision, Ferrero said.

But Dunn’s already got his eye on it.

“We hope to get some of those assister or navigator grant funds,” Dunn said. “If not, we’ve decided that we’re going to help our patients with this information anyway.”

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