Community health centers get $150 million to help enroll people in new marketplaces

Huffington Post: Walgreens, Blue Cross Blue Shield Join Obamacare Education Campaign 
Walgreens will provide brochures to customers at its more than 8,000 Walgreens and Duane Reade stores across the U.S. and has debuted a consumer information website, LearnAboutReform.com, with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, an affiliation of 38 health insurance companies (Young, 7/10).

Bloomberg: Walgreen Joins Blue Cross To Promote Health Exchanges
The announcement may provide a lift two weeks after the National Football League threw water on the idea of becoming a partner with the Obama administration, which has struggled to sell the law's benefits amid roadblocks by Republican opponents. The Walgreen-Blue Cross effort would be the largest by private industry to promote the 2010 health-care law (Wayne, 7/10).

Politico: Blue Cross, Walgreens Team For Obamacare Campaign
The partnership shows the strong role the private sector could have in explaining the health care reform law to a public that largely does not understand it. &quotThere's a lot of confusion, a lot of questions and it'll take a tremendous collaborative effort to make sure people have the information they need to make informed choices,&quot said Brad Fluegel, a Walgreens senior vice president and chief strategy officer (Haberkorn, 7/11).

Local and regional news outlets concentrated on the community health center grants -

MPR News: Minn. Health Centers To Receive $1.68M For Uninsured
Sixteen Minnesota health centers will share $1.68 million in federal funds to help uninsured Minnesotans obtain coverage under the federal health care law. ... The extra funding is earmarked for the Minnesota health centers to hire 29 additional staff. Each of the 16 Minnesota health centers will receive a minimum of $65,000 (Stawicki, 7/10).

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Feds Announce $1.6 Million Grant To Minnesota Community Health Clinics
The grants announced Wednesday range from $66,000 to $255,000, depending on the number of uninsured patients each clinic serves. About 37 percent of patients visiting the state's community health clinics are uninsured, according to the Minnesota Association of Community Health Centers (Griffin, 7/10).

CT Mirror: Community Health Centers To Hire Workers To Get Uninsured Covered
Connecticut community health centers are getting federal funds to hire 28 people to help enroll uninsured state residents in coverage as part of the federal health reform law, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday. Thirteen Connecticut health centers are getting just under $1.6 million for the effort (Levin Becker, 7/10).

Arizona Republic: Arizona Centers Get $2.3 Million To Enroll Uninsured
Non-profit community health centers are on the front lines as the federal government prepares for sweeping changes, including Medicaid expansion and online health-insurance exchanges. The grants will help hire and train an estimated 2,900 outreach and eligibility workers nationwide, including 45 in Arizona (Reinhart, 7/10).