Some of the worst liberal bias in America's media is coming out in Spanish. Kate Nocera at BuzzFeed Politics reports "For more than a year, the Spanish-language television network Univision has embarked on their own company-wide effort to get Latinos signed up on the exchanges, working through newscasts, special programming, advertising partnerships, and a dedicated health care website."
In an article titled "Univision Works Overtime To Get Latinos Enrolled In Obamacare," Nocera writes the network has not only been providing "newscasts" and ads to their viewers as to how to sign up but openly encouraging them to do so.
The approach has been wide and varied. Beyond information on a website, Univision has sponsored several town halls — including one with President Barack Obama. The network produced an hour-long documentary on a Texas family that practically went bankrupt from medical bills, and has aired a weekly program on preventive health care as it relates to the ACA. That’s in addition to any events or news local Univision affiliates produce.
“Those are just some ways we went beyond just regular news stories to tell this story,” Keppel said.
And last year, the major insurance company WellPoint teamed up with Univision to do town halls, radio and TV ads, and news programming on Obamacare.
Univision would not give BuzzFeed an estimate of how much money the company has invested in the effort. But wait, it gets hilarious with the denials:
Keppel said the network’s enrollment drive was not a political decision [!] — and Univision’s political reporters have continued to cover the politics of the law. The enrollment effort is separate from that coverage, he said.
“We’ve always looked at it with the simple fact that this is the law, it was approved by Congress, it was approved by the Supreme Court. It has an outsized impact on our audience because of the statistics on uninsured Latinos,” Keppel said. “We definitely want to give people all the tools they need to get enrolled. Our basic messaging on the website is: find out what you are eligible for and enroll. And if you don’t enroll you have to pay a fine and that’s what it means.”
A main goal for Univision, Keppel said, has been reiterating that signing up for the ACA would not require giving immigration information to the government. The network heard concerns from viewers who worried that if they signed up for Obamacare, the government would use the information to find out the immigration status of family members.
“That was a key issue for us. We heard a lot about it from mixed-status families and we pressed the administration a lot to get specific and clear answers on what they need,” he said. “We got specific statements from ICE in Spanish saying they would not use this information for immigration purposes. We did a town hall with the president where we asked him this directly.”
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a Democrat from Chicago and Univision regular, lauded the effort, telling BuzzFeed that the channel was one of the “most valuable institutions that we have for economic, social change.”
...Not everyone is impressed with what Univision is trying to do.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican with a large Latino constituency in southwest Florida, said that Obamacare has “been disastrous” for Latinos and said the law played a role in the high unemployment numbers in Latino communities.
