Democrats finally gear up to sell ACA with Know Your Care and Protect Your Care

A group of Democratic heavyweights, including Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick (D-Mass.), announced last week the creation of two groups organized to promote the Pension Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to the website knowyourcare.org, "Know Your Care is a 501c3 organization dedicated to educating the American people about the Affordable Care Act’s life-saving consumer and patient protections that are already benefitting millions of Americans and will benefit millions more in the coming years as additional provisions are implemented." Protect Your Care will be a grassroots lobbying effort to protect health care reform from repeal.

The Know Your Care site so far has relatively little information, but connects readers to HealthCare.gov, as does protectyourcare.org, which also has a few personal interest stories.

Those to be involved in the two groups also include former Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Wis.), Neera Tanden, COO for the Center for American Progress, Paul Tewes, President Obama’s state director for the Iowa caucuses, and Jim Margolis, a well-known communications consultant.

The groups are said to already have $5 million to work with, although the source of that funding has apparently not been revealed. Considering all of the sometimes successful shots that the GOP has taken at the ACA recently, one wonders if the Democratic effort will be too little, too late, though. In fact, Congress is expected in the near future to vote to repeal HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's authority to allocate  money for state insurance exchanges until 2015.

For a comprehensive analysis of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, including the full text of the law and additional information on health reform implementation and other recent developments in employee benefits, just click here.