RWJF discontinues uninsured campaign

Cover the Uninsured Week is no more. Organizers of the 8-year-old annual event said in a statement that they are shifting focus toward the implementation of the federal health reform law, which is expected to extend health coverage to 34 million uninsured Americans.

“Although Cover the Uninsured is coming to a close, the work in which we've all engaged these last eight years is not ending,” said John Lumpkin, senior vice president and director of the healthcare group at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, in the statement. “Rather it launches a new chapter to enroll the millions of people who will become eligible for new coverage when the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented in 2014.”

A project of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Cover the Uninsured Week was a national campaign started in 2003 to raise awareness about the plight of the uninsured. The foundation supported events across the country each spring, in cooperation with local governments and advocacy groups.

The foundation is starting a new campaign called Enroll America that will work with many of the same local partners to raise awareness about health insurance options becoming available through the reform law. The initiative is slated to launch in several weeks.