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HHS looks to boost messaging efforts
The Obama administration health department office tasked with selling the healthcare reform law is looking to quadruple its budget while almost doubling the size of its staff.
Under the Department of Health and Human Services’ fiscal 2012 budget request, the assistant secretary for public affairs' office would get a bump from $4.8 million to $19.9 million in fiscal 2012. Meanwhile, the office would grow from 24 to 46 full-time equivalent employees.
Almost all of the new funding would be used to improve healthcare.gov and to conduct an educational outreach campaign “designed to help Americans understand and access their benefits and information under the law,” HHS wrote in its budget justification. The efforts were funded in fiscal 2010 and 2011 under the reform law, according to the budget document.
The Obama adminisration has made a concentrated effort in the past few months to promote the reform law’s popular consumer protections as Republicans try to repeal, defund and weaken the healthcare overhaul.
According to the budget document, some of the public affairs office’s responsibilities include:
- overseeing efforts to expand HHS's transparency and public accountability efforts through improved communications;
- providing timely, accurate, consistent and comprehensive public health information to the public;
- serving the secretary in advising and preparing public communications and developing strategic plans for HHS;
- providing public affairs counsel in the HHS policymaking process;
- acting as the central HHS press office handling media requests and press releases;
- managing and maintaining the content of the HHS website and several departmental and governmental cross-agency websites such as healthcare.gov, flu.gov, foodsafety.gov, stopmedicarefraud.gov and AIDS.gov;
- overseeing and producing special events that highlight top HHS officials; and
- supporting television, Web and radio appearances for the secretary and top department officials.
HHS did not respond to a request for comment on this story.
