The Affordable Care Act - known colloquially as "Obamacare" - was controversial long before the bill ever became law.
With years spent by both major political parties bombarding the public with information - and misinformation - a tremendous amount of confusion still surrounds the law today.
In response to a well-coordinated and sustained offensive against the law by its detractors, the Obama administration and its supporters engaged in a full-court marketing press.
Marketing via Politics
As discussed in the article “10 of the most popular Obamacare questions answered", mistaken perceptions continue to run rampant. To counter this, politicians are turning to what they know best.
With a consequential midterm Congressional election coming up in the fall of 2014, one of the most direct - and least expensive - ways that Obamacare will be marketed is through the politicians who support it themselves.
With an established set of talking points, the elected leaders who support the law can - as part of their closely watched campaigns - trumpet the positive side of the law night after night on the cable news networks, which will be lining up to interview them in the days, weeks and months leading up to the decisive election.
Celebrity Marketing
Among the biggest early fears was that healthy, young adults would not sign up in numbers significant enough to provide a financial foundation capable of supporting the enormous number of aging Baby Boomers who visit the doctor much more frequently.
In response, the law's proponents enlisted an army of celebrities to push their throngs of adoring fans into enrolling.
John Legend, Lady Gaga, Jennifer Hudson, Pearl Jam and Amy Poehler are just a few who bombarded their millions of collective young fans with a unified message - and that message was emblazoned in the Twitter post "#GetCovered".
Social Media Marketing
The far-reaching, celebrity fueled marketing blitz was so successful that if you type in the search term "#GetCovered" into Google, the Obamacare marketing site comes up as the first two links - before the Twitter feed by the same name is ever even listed.
Combined with Facebook campaigns that targeted specific states crucial to the bill's success (Obamacare-friendly Kentucky, for example, which was one of the law's early success stories), the true power of social-media marketing was put on display.
Barack Obama swept into the White House in 2008 on the back of optimistic (or some would say naive) Americans and a genuine mastery of digital, new-media marketing, which left John McCain's much more traditional ground game limping across the finish line.
Social media, Internet marketing, celebrity endorsements and the injection of marketing into the actual political process proved a far more potent combination than phone banks, email lists and town hall meetings.
It is on the model of this efficient, proven strategy that the Obamacare marketing platform was - and will continue to be - based.