Non-profit

Protect Our Care

Type:

Pro-Obamacare Healthcare Coalition

Project of:

Sixteen Thirty Fund

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Protect Our Care is a left-of-center healthcare advocacy organization created to lobby for the preservation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (better known as “Obamacare”). Protect Our Care’s executive director is Brad Woodhouse, a prominent Democratic Party operative and political activist who previously served as president of American Bridge 21st Century and Americans United for Change (AUFC). Protect Our Care has described itself as a “dedicated war room for the ACA” (Obamacare). 1

Protect Our Care is a project of the 501(c)(4) advocacy group and incubator Sixteen Thirty Fund, which manages a number of single-issue advocacy front groups.1 Critics have characterized Sixteen Thirty Fund as a “darker-than-dark money” organization targeting Republican political candidates.2

Background

Protect Our Care was originally created as a political campaign against Republican politicians it accused of trying to dismantle Medicare.3 Protect Our Care is also involved in lobbying efforts to prevent the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

To this end Protect Our Care shares at least one prominent officer in common with the original campaign to pass Obamacare in 2010. The campaign’s executive director, Brad Woodhouse, worked on the steering committee for a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, Health Care for America Now (HCAN), when Obamacare was passed in 2010.4

Protect Our Care is a project of the 501(c)(4) advocacy group and incubator Sixteen Thirty Fund, which manages a number of single-issue advocacy front groups.1 Sixteen Thirty Fund also manages a similar front group, Health Care Voter, of which Woodhouse is a co-chair.

Sixteen Thirty Fund’s sister groups, New Venture Fund and Hopewell Fund, also manage two pro-Obamacare projects related to Protect Our Care and Health Care Voter: Save My Care and Get America Covered. The latter’s co-founder, Lori Lodes, has also served as campaign manager for Protect Our Care.

Advocacy Activities

As Republican members of Congress attempted to “repeal and replace” Obamacare after the 2016 elections, Protect Our Care worked with other groups such as Indivisible to campaign against the initiative. Many of the initiatives included individuals with preexisting conditions, such as types of cancer, to justify the continuation of Obamacare and campaign against GOP candidates during the 2018 midterm elections.5

Coronavirus War Room

On March 19, 2020, Protect Our Care announced it was launching a “war room” with several high-ranking Democratic politicians to accuse President Donald Trump of poorly responding to the coronavirus pandemic. Zac Petkanas, former communications adviser to Hillary Clinton and Harry Reid, is to serve as the director of the program. Patrick Devlin, former communications director to Majority Whip James Clyburn, is to serve as the senior communications adviser. Sarah Chase, a former research associate for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, as well as a former deputy research director for Protect Our Care, is to serve as the research director. 6

Leslie Dach, the chair of Protect our Care, said,

Today’s launch marks an important effort in Protect Our Care’s work to inform the American people about the science and facts about the coronavirus and to educate the public on the Trump’s administration’s ongoing failure to provide honest information and listen to the experts and the science. As a result America does not have the testing it needs, our health care workers don’t have the equipment they need, and our hospitals are not prepared. 6

Additionally, Protect Our Care has been running an advertisement against U.S. Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) that criticizes his opposition to the Affordable Care Act in light of the coronavirus pandemic. The ad’s narrator says: “Too many Montana families go to sleep at night worried about health care, coverage, costs, now the fear of coronavirus. That doesn’t worry Steve Daines. He voted to eliminate protections for 425,000 Montanans with preexisting conditions.” 7

The group’s opposition to Sen. Daines’ record supported the unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of then-Montana governor Steve Bullock (D) who entered the race on March 9. 8 This comes despite Bullock’s own repeated support for campaign transparency and opposition to dark money being used within political campaigns. 8

Storyteller Corps

Protect our Care maintains a website of various video interviews with Americans to defend the Obamacare and to promote further government control of health care. This project is called Protect Our Care’s Storyteller Corps. It produces videos usually less than 5 minutes in length, and the usual format includes the interviewee discussing their or their family’s health care situation followed by a statistic about the Affordable Care Act or an aspect of health care access in the US. Each interview has its own page on the website with more information about the person’s specific situation.9 10

As of June 2024, the website featured 33 interviews. These videos are hosted on YouTube but the vast majority are unlisted and only accessible via the Storyteller Corps website.10

The Storyteller Corps’ stated goal is to accumulate over 1,000 interviewees.9

People

Brad Woodhouse

Brad Woodhouse currently works as the executive director of Protect Our Care. Previously Woodhouse worked as president of the Democratic Party PAC American Bridge 21st Century and the pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC Correct the Record during her 2016 presidential election.11 Both groups were created by David Brock, a Democratic Party operative close to the Clinton family. Woodhouse most recently served as president of American United for Change (AUFC), a left-wing agitation group, during the 2016 presidential election.4

Woodhouse has also served as the communications director for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after helping to coordinate its communication strategy for Barack Obama in the 2008 general election.12 4

When Obamacare was originally being voted on in Congress, Woodhouse was on the steering committee for Health Care for America Now (HCAN), a 501(c)(4) advocacy group created with millions of dollars in startup funds from the Bermuda-based foundation Atlantic Philanthropies.13 HCAN was credited with coordinating much of the media campaign to pass Obamacare in Congress, working with professional activist groups such as MoveOn.org, the AFL-CIO, Organizing for Action, and the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) to lobby for the legislation.4

Leslie Dach

Leslie Dach is the campaign chair and former executive director of Protect Our Care. Dach was noted for bringing the “Never Trump” former Reagan administration speechwriter Doug Elmets to speak at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.4 Before working at Protect Our Care, Dach was an executive vice president for Walmart and a senior advisor for both the Rockefeller Foundation and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.14 After the election, Dach was a senior advisor for Co-Impact. Dach had experience with Obamacare as a senior counselor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and was in charge of initially implementing the law.

Lori Lodes

Lori Lodes is campaign manager for Protect Our Care. Lodes previously served as chief of staff for communications for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. Prior to that, Lodes was communications director for the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Obama administration; she has also served as senior vice president for the Center for American Progress (CAP), senior vice president for campaigns and strategy for CAP Action, and deputy communications director for the Service Employees Union International (SEIU). Lodes is also a co-founder of another pro-Obamacare organization, Get America Covered, which focuses on enrolling individuals into Obamacare.15

Adam Hoyer

Adam Hoyer is the organizing director for Protect Our Care and has also previously worked for Brad Woodhouse as national field director for Americans United for Change. Hoyer has worked as director of field campaigns for Smoot Tewes Group (STG), a Democratic Party consultancy headquartered in Washington, D.C.4 Previously Hoyer was a regional field director for Obama during the 2008 presidential election and later worked in both the U.S. Department of Commerce as well as a confidential assistant in the Obama White House.16

Tony Carrk

Tony Carrk is the deputy campaign director for Protect Our Care and a former senior researcher and research director for both Hillary Clinton’s 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Carrk was also vice president for policy and research for the Center for American Progress Action Fund (CAP Action), director of rapid response research for the Democratic National Committee (DNC), health policy director for ThinkProgress, and deputy research director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC).17

Anne Shoup

Anne Shoup serves as the communications director for Protect Our Care and previously worked at the consultancy New Paradigm Strategy Group. Shoup worked on healthcare issues for both the Democratic super PAC American Bridge 21st Century and the left-wing Center for American Progress (CAP). 18 While working at American Bridge 21st Century, Shoup was national director of the Bridge Project, a program designed to challenge conservative policies created after the success of the Tea Party during the 2010 midterm elections. 19

Funding

Protect Our Care is a project of the left-of-center 501(c)(4) funding and fiscal sponsorship group Sixteen Thirty Fund. While it is unspecified how much money the Sixteen Thirty Fund spends on the program, the nonprofit organization earned over $21 million in revenue in 2016.4

References

  1. Emily Kopp. “GOP Candidates Are Hearing It From Constituents With Pre-Existing Conditions.” Roll Call. November 2, 2018. Accessed December 13, 2018. https://www.rollcall.com/news/gop-candidates-hearing-constituents-preexisting-conditions
  2. Wyland, Michael. “Darker-than-Dark Money Targeting GOP House Candidates.” Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly. July 30, 2018. Accessed January 11, 2019. https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2018/07/30/darker-than-dark-money-targeting-gop-house-candidates/.
  3. “Six Ways Republicans Are Dismantling Medicare.” Protect Our Care. Accessed January 08, 2019. https://www.protectourcare.org/six-ways-republicans-are-dismantling-medicare/.
  4. Ludwig, Hayden. “The Dark Money Group Propping Up Obamacare.” Capital Research Center. December 19, 2018. Accessed January 08, 2019. https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-dark-money-group-propping-up-obamacare/.
  5. Kopp, Emily. “GOP Candidates Are Hearing It From Constituents With Pre-Existing Conditions.” Roll Call. November 02, 2018. Accessed January 09, 2019. https://www.rollcall.com/news/gop-candidates-hearing-constituents-preexisting-conditions.
  6. “Protect Our Care Launches Coronavirus War Room.” Protect Our Care, March 19, 2020. https://www.protectourcare.org/protect-our-care-launches-coronavirus-war-room/.
  7. Stanley-Becker, Isaac. “Democratic Groups to Spend Millions Hitting Trump over Coronavirus Response.” The Washington Post. WP Company, March 17, 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-groups-to-spend-millions-hitting-trump-over-coronavirus-response/2020/03/17/5f9fadba-686c-11ea-9923-57073adce27c_story.html.
  8. Schoffstall, Joe. Dark Money Juggernaut Gets Behind Steve Bullock, Who’s Long Derided Influence of Hidden Money.” The Washington Free Beacon. March 15th, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/democrats/dark-money-juggernaut-gets-behind-steve-bullock-whos-long-derided-influence-of-hidden-money/
  9. “Protect Our Care’s Storyteller Corps.” Protect Our Care’s Storyteller Corps. Accessed June 30, 2024. https://storytellercorps.com/.
  10. “Meet Protect Our Care’s Storyteller Corps.” Protect Our Care’s Storyteller Corps. Accessed June 30, 2024. https://storytellercorps.com/stories/.
  11. Graves, Lucia. “Meet the Man Who’s Making Super PACs Extra Super.” The Atlantic. July 31, 2015. Accessed January 08, 2019. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/meet-the-man-whos-making-super-pacs-extra-super/439692/.
  12. Glueck, Katie. “DNC Spokesman Woodhouse Leaving.” POLITICO. June 25, 2013. Accessed January 08, 2019. https://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/brad-woodhouse-exits-dnc-093322.
  13. Vadum, Matthew. “Dark Money Ascendant: The 501(c)4.” Capital Research Center. May 8, 2018. Accessed January 9, 2018. https://capitalresearch.org/article/dark-money-ascendant-part-1/
  14. “Leslie Dach.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesliedach.
  15. Lori Lodes.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-lodes-b818083
  16. “Adam Hoyer.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamhoyer.
  17. “Tony Carrk.” LinkedIn. Accessed January 8, 2019. https://www.linkedin.com/in/tony-carrk-b4a08410
  18. Diamond, Dan. “House Democrats Make Day 1 Largely about Health Care.” POLITICO. January 04, 2019. Accessed January 21, 2019. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-pulse/2019/01/04/house-democrats-make-day-1-largely-about-health-care-469405.
  19. “Texas Anti-Choice Groups Focus Beyond Supreme Court, Determined to End Women’s Right to Choose.” Bridge Project. June 22, 2016. Accessed January 21, 2019. http://bridgeproject.com/?page=29&transparency/people/Denise_Chaykun/connections.
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