The health insurance
exchanges set up under Obamacare are required by federal law to help
millions of uninsured Americans register to vote. But the Obama
administration is refusing to fully comply with that law, according to two voting rights organizations.
Here’s what the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has to do with voting: The
1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), known as the Motor Voter
law, requires departments of motor vehicles and other agencies that
provide public assistance to offer voter registration services. The new
health care exchanges fall under this requirement, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The federally-run exchange (which was set up to provide a health
insurance portal for residents in states where Republican governors
refused to establish their own insurance marketplaces) and several
state-run exchanges provide a link to the federal voter registration
website in their health insurance applications. But the Motor Voter law
requires that covered agencies do more than this, and in the case of
Obamacare, that means the navigators hired by HHS who walk uninsured
Americans through the sign-up process must also offer to guide applicants through the voter registration process. Yet in a letter sent to the White House on Thursday, voting rights groups Demos and Project Vote charge that HHS is not complying with this aspect of the law.
“This looks like [the administration is] running from a political
fight,” says Lawrence Jacobs, a political science professor at the
University of Minnesota and author of Health Care Reform and American Politics.
Jacobs sees HHS’ decision to not
provide Americans full voter registration services through the federal
exchange as a capitulation to Republicans. Republicans have been complaining that
Obamacare could make it easier for uninsured Americans—who are largely
low-income, minority, and young people who tend to vote Democratic—to
register to vote. “Republicans are growling, and the administration is
running,” Jacobs says. A House Democratic aide notes that the Obama
administration “is trying to minimize political vulnerabilities.”
Last September, before the exchanges opened, Mother Jones reported
that the administration was wavering on whether it would comply with
the Motor Voter law in this regard. Since then, Demos and Project Vote
have pressured the White House behind the scenes, urging the
administration to require the federal exchange to offer full voter
registration services, which would entail more detailed notification in
the health insurance application regarding voter registration. It would
also mean that the federal exchange has to treat voter registration as a
part of its own application process; if an uninsured person needs help
with their insurance application, that person would also automatically
be offered help with their voter registration application. The
administration’s response has been “sympathetic indifference,” says
Michael Slater, executive director of Project Vote.
Jacobs notes that “HHS has really dropped the ball…[on] a very
important effort to link health reform to political equality.”
Obamacare, he points out, has the potential to add millions of Americans
to the voter rolls. Over 50 million Americans are not registered to vote. And the 24 million uninsured Americans
who are expected to buy health insurance through the exchanges are
particularly likely to be unregistered to vote, according to Lake Research, a political strategy research firm.
The letter from Demos and Project Vote urges Obama to ensure HHS
fully complies with the Motor Voter law, and it comes a day after the
Presidential Commission on Election Administration, which Obama created
last year to examine voting problems in the country, issued a report
that found that “the election statute most often ignored…is the
National Voter Registration Act.” The study calls for increased
enforcement of government agencies’ compliance with the Motor Voter
law.
Some conservative legal scholars say that the exchanges don’t have to provide voter registration
because they offer private insurance and, consequently, don’t fall
under the Motor Voter law’s definition of a public assistance agency.
But the Obama administration itself disagrees with this argument. It hasacknowledged several times
that the exchanges are covered by the Motor Voter law generally, though
it has not addressed the part of the law that requires the training of
navigators. HHS is “ignoring” the law, Slater says.
An HHS spokesperson says the agency is complying with the requirement
that voter registration be offered in the exchange application. But he
didn’t explain why it is not training navigators to assist voters in the
registration process. The White House and the Justice Department did
not respond to requests for comment.