In-Depth: Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) reintroduced this bill from the 115th Congress to require the Secretary of Heath and Human Services to invest in outreach and promotional activities for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In a letter to her Congressional colleagues seeking cosponsors for this bill in the current Congress, Rep. Waters wrote: 

"As part of its campaign to undermine the ACA, the Trump administration has slashed funding for outreach and promotional activities for the ACA, including advertising and outreach to inform consumers about the availability of health coverage and financial assistance.  The administration has also cut funding for the navigator program, which provides grants to organizations that educate consumers and facilitate enrollment. Outreach to consumers is essential for a stable health insurance marketplace. Covered California’s extensive marketing and outreach program is a case in point. According to a 2017 Covered California report, investments in marketing and outreach attract a healthier risk pool, lower premiums, and encourage health insurance companies to participate in the market with more certainty and potential returns. The report shows how marketing and outreach increased enrollment among younger and healthier consumers, thereby reducing premiums by an estimated 6 to 8 percent in 2015 and 2016.  The lower premiums increased the likelihood of enrollment by healthier consumers, which further reduced premiums.  Covered California estimated that every dollar invested in marketing yields a more than three-to-one return on investment...  The OUTREACH Act will help to expand coverage, lower premiums, and ensure a stable health insurance marketplace in states across the country."

Last Congress, Rep. Waters introduced this bill to increase federal funding for outreach activities by the federal health insurance marketplaces, state-run health insurance marketplaces, and local advocacy organizations to encourage health coverage enrollment, particularly among minority, rural, and underserved communities, people with disabilities, and young adults: 

“Our health care system is under attack by a president, administration, and Republican-controlled Congress that – after numerous failed attempts to repeal Obamacare – are sabotaging it for political gain. My legislation seeks to reverse their vindictive efforts to undermine and de-stabilize our health care system by ensuring that all consumers are provided with the information they need to make timely and well-informed decisions when purchasing health coverage through the federal and state-run marketplaces… I am proud to introduce legislation that not only increases funding for promotional activities… but also takes steps to increase enrollment in underserved communities, lower health care premiums, and ensure a stable health insurance marketplace nationwide.”

During the 115th Congress, Judicial Watch, an American conservative activist group, called this bill a “preposterous measure” to fund a “fraud-infested Obamacare ‘outreach’ program” that it organization contended is neither effective nor well-run:

“The Obamacare navigator program was rife with fraud and corruption and Judicial Watch sued HHS back in 2014 to obtain records that the agency refused to provide under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In 2013, the Obama administration gave dozens of leftists organizations a whopping $67 million to help people ‘navigate’ health insurance exchanges that weren’t even fully established. In a ‘culturally competent manner’ the so-called navigators were tasked with helping people shop for and enroll in plans that would eventually be available on the federal government market places. The money was divided between 105 mostly leftist groups that assisted and recruited the uninsured to sign up for coverage and understand their options… Some of the navigator money went to a labor front group called Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York headed by an illegal immigrant activist named Maria Marroquin. The group received navigator funds shortly after Marroquin, an illegal alien from Peru, had been arrested for participating in disruptive demonstrations protesting the deportation of fellow undocumented immigrants and demanding amnesty. Besides the outrage of hiring an illegal immigrant to promote a U.S. government program, it’s equally disturbing to know that navigators have access to the sensitive personal information of healthcare enrollees… Navigator funds also went to a nonprofit (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)) with such a huge history of corruption that Congress issued a federal funding ban.”

This bill has 28 Democratic cosponsors in the 116th Congress. In the 115th Congress, this bill was referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health with the support of 36 Democratic cosponsors but didn't see committee action.