White House again enlists celebrities for ObamaCare push

The White House is again leaning on celebrities to promote the ObamaCare open enrollment period, with dozens of actors, athletes and musicians hawking the president’s signature healthcare law.

{mosads}On Monday – the first of several “celebrity days of action” — the White House, Department of Health Human Services and Organizing for Action reposted tweets from actors including Julianne Moore, Kerry Washington, and Jared Leto, Olympic gold medalist Shaun White and musician Pharell Williams.

The administration is looking to stars to flood social media channels with messages encouraging their fans to sign up for health insurance.

“We will work with celebrities from across the country that have a diversity of following to amplify open enrollment again to raise awareness, and to make sure consumers know that the plans are affordable,” a White House official said. “Celebrities and athletes plan to film PSAs, create online content, utilize Twitter and Facebook, and participate in days of action.”

The White House said celebrity engagement was crucial to driving traffic to HealthCare.gov during the first open enrollment period. More than 100 celebrities, including LeBron James, Zach Galifianakis, Magic Johnson, Katy Perry and Ellen DeGeneres, taped viral web clips and or blanketed radio stations across the country.

The push comes as a new Gallup poll released Monday showed approval of ObamaCare at an all-time low. Just 37 percent of respondents said they approved of the law, while 56 percent disapproved.

Still, officials were encouraged by a relatively smooth rollout over the weekend, with the redesigned HealthCare.gov portal largely working as intended.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said there were a million visits to the website in the first weekend, and that some 200,000 people had called in to customer care centers. Of those groups, 100,000 people filled out applications for insurance coverage through the federal exchange, where consumers can purchase coverage or swap plans, during the first day of the enrollment period.

The administration says it hopes to have a total of 9.1 million enrollees at the conclusion of the year — down from the 13 million originally projected.