State ends kynect advertising campaign
Kentucky has ended an award-winning advertising campaign for kynect, the state health insurance website and outreach campaign that Gov. Matt Bevin has pledged to dismantle.
A contract with Louisville advertising agency Doe-Anderson has not been renewed after expiring Nov. 30, and the agency was directed on Dec. 18 to cancel pending advertising, according to Jill Midkiff, a spokeswoman for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services.
Dan Burgess, director of public relations at Doe-Anderson, said the agency has been asked to refer questions to state officials.
The campaign was funded with federal money.
Bevin spokeswoman Jessica Ditto said the administration of former Gov. Steve Beshear on Nov. 2 sought approval for an extension of the Doe-Anderson contract beyond Nov. 30, but it was rejected by the state Finance and Administration Cabinet.
Ditto said the Bevin administration does not know why the finance cabinet rejected the extension "but there does not appear to be any legal basis to continue the contract."
Pamela Trautner, a spokeswoman for the finance cabinet, was unable to provide further information Wednesday as to why the contract extension was rejected.
Longtime health advocate Sheila Schuster said she was disappointed to learn the kynect advertising campaign has been canceled midway through the current health insurance enrollment period, which ends Jan. 31.
"It really makes no sense," said Schuster, chairwoman of Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of health advocacy groups. "Why would the state not want people to know they have this option?"
The kynect brand was created by Doe-Anderson to introduce Kentucky's version of the Affordable Care Act enacted by executive order of Beshear, a Democrat. It was widely praised by health advocates for its role in helping more than a half-million Kentuckians gain health coverage through advertising, outreach and a website marked by distinctive, cartoon-style drawings.
During its first two years under the new health law also known as Obamacare, Kentucky achieved the sharpest decline in the nation in its rate of residents with no health coverage, dropping from 20.4 to 9 percent.
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Consumers can use the kynect website to shop for health plans or determine whether they are eligible for Medicaid, the state-federal health plan for low-income people. The website for the health exchange became a national model at a time when other states' websites were struggling and the federal site launch was marred by repeated crashes.
The kynect campaign won Doe-Anderson an Effie Award, one of the advertising industry's most prestigious awards in marketing, according to an announcement on its website.
But Republicans in the General Assembly repeatedly criticized kynect as well as Beshear's decision to adopt the federal health law in Kentucky and expand Medicaid to include more poor Kentuckians.
Bevin has pledged to scale back the Medicaid expansion and shut down kynect, saying Kentuckians can use the federal website, healthcare.gov to shop for insurance.
Besides broadcast advertising, the kynect campaign included billboards, bus shelter ads, brochures and community outreach events to inform the public about health coverage.
Midkiff said Doe-Anderson was awarded $5 million in federal money for advertising and outreach. Whatever money is not spent will be returned to the federal government, she said.
Schuster said the advertising campaign's distinctive style and outreach efforts helped make the federal health law a success in Kentucky even as many Kentuckians expressed a negative view of Obamacare.
"The kynect brand has been very positively accepted by Kentuckians," she said.
Reporter Deborah Yetter can be reached at (502) 582-4228 or dyetter@courier-journal.com.