Reported with Natalie Villacorta and Sabrina Eaton

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Oregon is making music videos and Kentucky is showing up at bourbon festivals to advertise a new way for individuals to get health insurance next year.

Ohio is purposely sitting on its hands.

Ohio’s Department of Insurance has planned no marketing, advertising or outreach to promote the Affordable Care Act, even though enrollment begins in less than two months. Consumers nonetheless can expect to hear plenty about it -- the good, the bad and, especially, the political -- in coming weeks.

Politicians, advocacy groups with ties to Democrats and Republicans, and nonprofit health organizations will spend August ramping up toward the Oct. 1 start of enrollment in Ohio's health insurance exchange. This exchange, run by the federal government but offering health plans regulated by Ohio, is actually a computerized marketplace where some consumers will compare and choose available coverage.

The rhetoric over it has left consumers confused or even scared, advocates and opponents say.

“A lot of the confusion and difficulty here is politically motivated” by groups that want to see the law, known as Obamacare, damaged and therefore see President Barack Obama’s political party, the Democrats, hurt, said Brian Rothenberg, executive director of ProgressOhio, a progressive group that supports the health law. ProgressOhio is one of several groups based in Ohio and Washington, D.C., that will be in the public eye as the debate comes to town hall meetings and rallies this month.

Joanne Pickrell, a Columbus-based public affairs and grassroots advocacy consultant, said the coming week will see events in Ohio to draw attention to women's benefits in the Affordable Care Act. Maternity and newborn care, for example, must be covered under the act. Locations and times for these events are still being set.

Pickrell, whose husband, Aaron, ran Ohio campaigns for Obama and former Gov. Ted Strickland, is working with Americans United for Change, a liberal group in Washington, D.C., and Protect Your Care, another progressive advocacy group.

Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, said this coalition will also attend town hall meetings held by Obamacare opponents, as will Rothenberg's group, which is loosely affiliated. Both said they will be there to refute claims about the Affordable Care Act that they consider to be false.

Republicans in Congress, who on Friday left Washington for a five-week break, have already vowed to criticize the law back in their districts. They consider the requirement to obtain insurance an intrusion on individual rights, the tax funding for it an obstacle to economic growth, and the subsidies available to consumers a big-government entitlement.

Ohio Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, a Republican, bolstered their objections Thursday by announcing the long-awaited premiums that buyers will pay on the individual-market and small-business-group exchanges. Compared with current average premiums, the individual-market prices will go up by an average of 41 percent, Taylor said. These rates still must be approved by Washington.

Republicans seized on the news, saying it is proof that Ohioans will pay more for insurance under Obamacare. Democrats countered that Taylor minimized several factors that rendered her price comparisons misleading. Taxpayer subsidies will be available for 80 percent to 90 percent of those buying coverage on the exchange, according to the Congressional Budget Office, so the cost to consumers will be considerably less and in many cases will be lower than consumers pay now.

The range of benefits required under the law is also richer, and a number of bare-bones and high-deductible policies, which provided little coverage but were cheap, will not be sold. Insurers will no longer be able to reject customers who have pre-existing conditions or illnesses, resulting in far more people with coverage, advocates note.

“It saddens me to see that Ohio’s insurance commissioner has decided to use creative math to score political points,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, who represents the Youngstown area. He said the law “ensures that we will have a higher quality of health insurance, and at the end of the day, it should be our responsibility to give every Ohioan and American the ability and resources to live healthier lives.”

But the matter of choice to skip coverage or have minimum coverage, and the costs before subsidies, were sure-fire fodder for debate as lawmakers left Washington Friday. Sen. Rob Portman, an Ohio Republican, was among those planning to take the debate back to Ohio during the break.

His “biggest concern,” said spokeswoman Caitlin Dunn, “ is that those premium numbers represent a significant market distortion due to the mandates, taxes, and regulations within the ACA. While not the only measure of the cost containment failure of the President’s reform law, premiums are a tangible and significant issue for many Ohioans.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Renacci of Wadsworth already has an Aug. 15 town hall meeting scheduled in Orrville where he’ll discuss the health care law, said spokesman Shawn Ryan. Renacci also plans to visit health care facilities and nursing homes, where the issue is sure to come up.

Ryan said Renacci and his office can't answer many of the questions constituents ask about the law's implementation because the Obama administration hasn't yet finalized the rules. Obama delayed a rule that would have penalized large employers for not offering affordable group coverage, for example, and it now won't take effect until 2015. The exchanges selling individual and small-group coverage, however, have not been delayed.

“That is one of the biggest reasons why it is so unpopular,” Ryan said of the law. “People don’t know what it is going to do. There is a lot of confusion out there. The people who wrote the law are not sure how to implement it and the people who are charged with implementing it don’t know how to implement it.”

But Democrats are holding meetings, too. Democratic U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown plans to hold them in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. He will bring the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to information sessions Aug. 8 at Cuyahoga Community College’s Metro Campus from 10 a.m. to noon, and the other at the City Club of Cleveland from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (Brown’s office asked people to rsvp at 216-522-7272 or email brown_rsvp@brown.senate.gov and specify which session they will attend. )

And U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge will meet with her Akron-area constituents at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Lawton Street Community Center. Fudge’s office is also preparing a pamphlet on the subject for constituents, and op-ed pieces for publication in local newspapers.

“Our messaging thrust is to make sure constituents know the ways to enroll and where to get accurate information,” said Fudge spokeswoman Belinda Prinz.

As for the role of the Ohio Department of Insurance, which regulates insurers and had to agree that the new plans meet sound underwriting principles, its spokesman says that its consumer service division "can help track down information as appropriate or help point consumers to the right place to get their questions answered." But the department, headed by Taylor, the lieutenant governor, will not be involved in marketing the exchanges.

The department “has never marketed or assisted in promoting a specific company or market and that will remain true in this situation,” said communications director Chris Brock.

Ohio’s decision is consistent with several other states with Republican governors who chose to tap into the federal exchange for selling their states’ policies rather than establish own exchanges. But even on the national exchange, each state has a different array of insurers and other nuances, and Affordable Care Act advocates say they wish Ohio’s state government would do more to help consumers understand the coming changes.

As a share of Ohio’s population, customers who will rely on the exchange represent a small group. In 2010, 350,000 Ohioans purchased their own health insurance on the individual market, according to a study commissioned by the Ohio Department of Insurance. The study predicts this number will more than double by 2017.

Enrollment for this group -- people who buy insurance on the individual market rather than obtaining it through their employers -- represents the first large step of the law that requires most Americans to have coverage.

With the state government declining to take the lead, health centers and other organizations like Enroll America -- whose leaders and advisers include insurance companies and a variety of nonprofit groups -- will be responsible for informing the more than 1.5 million uninsured Ohioans on how, specifically, to enroll in the exchange.

“I think there is a concern that people are uninformed or misinformed,” said Trey Daly, Enroll America’s Ohio director. Many Americans incorrectly think that the Affordable Care Act has been overturned by courts and are confused about how the state health insurance marketplaces are going to work, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study.

Daly said Enroll America is looking for volunteers to reach out to uninsured people. The group held a canvassing event in Lakewood last weekend and is planning a phone-a-thon. It is also partnering with other organizations including community health centers and the Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio, or UHCAN, to coordinate outreach and enrollment efforts.

Nita Carter, UHCAN Ohio’s health equity director, said she will spend the next few weeks training speakers who work in minority communities about how the exchanges will work and how to relay that information to consumers. .

Ohio’s 36 Community Health Centers received $3.9 million from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services July 10 for outreach and enrollment assistance. The centers expect to hire 75 additional workers, who will assist 84,439 people, according to the HHS website.

Cleveland’s four community health centers received $597,361 and plan to collaborate on community-wide outreach events. Care Alliance Health Center, which serves the homeless and individuals in public housing, plans to work one-on-one with patients to determine what kind of coverage they are eligible for, said Kate Nagel, Care Alliance’s chief administrative officer.

HHS will also fund at least two "navigators" -- organizations that will have special training and certification to help people determine their coverage options and find an affordable plan that meets their needs. Applicants for these grants will learn if they were awarded funds by Aug.15. The Ohio Association of Food Banks has applied for a $1.9 million navigator grant and plans to use the funds to hold about 250 enrollment events around the state, said Jason Elchert, deputy director of the association.

“I think our concern is that people just don’t have enough information yet,” he said. The Food Bank hopes to develop a social media campaign, YouTube videos and a smart phone application to reach people who may not think health insurance is important, such as the young and healthy, Elchert said.

“Health insurance may not be that exciting for a lot of folks, but when it boils down to it, it’s something we all need to think about,” he said.

The Ohio Association of Community Health Centers, the Philanthropy Ohio Health Initiative and the Health Policy Institute of Ohio have been meeting regularly to discuss outreach, education and consumer assistance issues under the umbrella of the Ohio Network for Health Coverage and Enrollment, or ONCE. This summer, ONCE is developing a plan to ensure that outreach, education and enrollment efforts in Ohio are coordinated.