Giving a boost to the new healthcare law, a coalition of hospitals, insurers, drug makers and consumer advocates is joining a multimillion-dollar campaign to get Americans signed up for health insurance starting in 2014. The new nonprofit group, called Enroll America, plans a state-by-state effort to publicize the expanded availability of health coverage and to help state leaders put in place procedures to simplify enrollment. The law signed by President Obama last year requires most Americans to get insurance starting in 2014. At the same time, the law bans insurers from denying coverage to those who are sick and provides hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies to help low- and middle-income Americans purchase insurance. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that an additional 32 million Americans will get insurance by 2019. But getting people to sign up in 21/2 years remains one of the major challenges confronting those working to implement the law.
