Well that did not last long.
The National Football League said Friday that it has no plans to get involved in promoting Obamacare.
In an email to the Washington Examiner’s Philip Klein NFL Spokesman Brian McCarthy said that the league has responded to the concerns voiced by lawmakers about the potential that the NFL could begin pushing the new health insurance plans soon to be available under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
“We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about PPACA’s implementation,” McCarthy emailed.
In recent days the administration revealed they were in talks with professional sports leagues like the NFL and National Basketball Association to help recruit young people to enroll in the new Obamacare plans.
Republican lawmakers sent letters to the NFL and NBA, and other professional sports leagues warning them against taking up the figurative Obamacare ball and running with it.
“Given the divisiveness and persistent unpopularity of this bill, it is difficult to understand why an organization like yours would risk damaging its inclusive and apolitical brand by lending its name to [Obamacare’s] promotion,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Republican Whip John Cornyn wrote in a letter sent to the commissioners of the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, National Hockey League, Professional Golf Association and the chairman and chief executive officer of NASCAR Thursday.
Louisiana Republican Rep. Steve Scalise also warned the NFL and NBA against doing the administration’s “dirty work” with his own letters.
Indeed the move has already repulsed some conservative groups.
“I’ve already seen people on Twitter say they would never watch another NFL game ever again. Because it’s a release for people, you know that is the one place people do get away from politics,” Amy Kramer, chairman of the Tea Party Express, told The Daily Caller in response to earlier reports that the NFL was engaged in talks with the administration. She added that she too would stop watching.
Keli Carender, a Tea Party organizer with Tea Party Patriots, added further to TheDC that she thought the idea of sports leagues promoting Obamacare was “disgusting” and “shady,” echoing Kramer’s assertion that sports is one place where people can get away from politics.
“I think it would be a really bad decision for the NFL or NBA or any of these guys to partner with the government on this. I certainly wouldn’t want to watch anymore and I’m a huge NFL fan,” she added prior to the McCarthy’s statement denying future Obamacare promotion plans.