Obama gives Latinos full court press

The president appeared at a town-hall-style event Thursday, hosted by Spanish-language media outlets, to urge Latinos to sign up for insurance options made available by the health law before open enrollment ends March 31.

NPR: Obama Pitches Health Care Law To Latinos In Bid To Boost Enrollment
Getting Latinos to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act is seen as critical to the law's success. The Latino population is disproportionately uninsured and relatively young, but enrollment hasn't been going well. This, in part, explains President Obama's appearance Thursday at a town-hall-style event hosted by the nation's two largest Spanish-language television networks, Univision and Telemundo. The tough questions he got only scratch the surface (Keith, 3/6).

The Associated Press/Washington Post: Obama To Latinos: Last Call For Health Care Signup
Facing fresh skepticism from one of his traditionally most loyal constituencies, Obama pushed back on the notion of some critics that he's become America's "deporter in chief," insisting that Latinos know that "I've got their back." In a virtual town hall meeting with Spanish-language media outlets, Obama disputed that his credibility had been undermined by the chaotic health care rollout and his failure to secure legal status for millions of Latinos in the U.S. illegally (3/6).

Kaiser Health News: Capsules: Obama Urges Latinos To Sign Up For Insurance Now
President Barack Obama appealed directly to Latinos on Thursday, telling them time is running out to sign up for health coverage this year and that they should enroll now to avoid problems (Galewitz, 3/6).

MSNBC: A Final Push For Insurance Sign-Ups?
National Council of La Raza's Janet Murguia joins to discuss President Obama's push for more Latin-Americans to enroll in Obamacare (Farrow, 3/6).

MSNBC: How Immigration Affects Latinos' ACA Enrollment
The  number of uninsured Hispanics is nearly double the national rate. On Thursday, Pres. Obama pushed for Latinos to sign up for health care at a town hall. He also dodged the label of "Deporter-in-Chief." Telemundo's Jose Diaz-Balart discusses (3/6).

NBC News: Latinos Get Full-Court Press From Obama For Health Care Sign-Up
President Barack Obama sought to reassure families with a mixture of U.S. citizens and immigrants here illegally that their personal information would not be shared with immigration officials if they sign up for health care. With the March 31 deadline looming, the president said Thursday at a town hall directed at Latinos, "none of the information provided (to buy health insurance) is in any way transferred to immigration services." The administration has been concerned about the lag in enrollment by Latinos for insurance under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare (Gamboa, 3/6).

CBS News: Speaking to Latinos, Obama Defends Immigration, Obamacare
In an interview with reporters from the country's top Spanish-language media outlets Thursday, President Obama encouraged the nation's Latino community to sign up for health insurance in the coming weeks while insisting he won't push back the March 31 deadline or waive fines for people who fail to do so. But his health care law is becoming intertwined with the national debate about immigration reform, forcing the president to go on the defensive about those policies as well. One of the first questions for the president during the interview, which was conducted by anchors from Univision and Telemundo, was whether immigrants who came to the U.S. illegally but then had children who were born with citizenship should worry about being turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement if they tried to get healthcare for their children (Kaplan, 3/6).