Today, we will doing our first real reporting assignment. It will be due by Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.
Background: On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services released the February Enrollment Report for the heath insurance marketplace. The health insurance marketplace was mandated by the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The marketplace has been one of the most controversial topics in recent political memory. The constitutionality of the individual mandate was challenged, which resulted in a ruling by the United State Supreme Court. When the insurance marketplace launched on October 1, it was tragically flawed, resulting in individuals not being able to effectively navigate the website. Since then the Obama administration has made many changes to HealthCare.gov.
Assignment: You have been assigned by the KnoxNews to write an article about enrollment rates for the insurance marketplace. Needless to say, it is for the KnoxNews, so would like the focus of the article to be enrollment in Tennessee. With that said, they would like you to provide context by discussing national enrollment trends and comparing Tennessee to other similar states. You have been budgeted 10 column inches (or about 350 to 400 words), along with room for one information graphic. Please submit your story and a storyboard for your graphic (this can be anything from a hand drawn sketch to a quick excel chart) to the course website before 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
Resources: You are allowed to report this story in any way you would like (i.e., any sources, any information), except please don’t look up stories that have reported on the February numbers already.
Here are some base resources to help you start reporting this story:
Government Reports
- February Enrollment Report
- January Enrollment Report
- December Enrollment Report
- November (initial) Enrollment Report
Dealing with PDF’s
- Cometdocs – If you use this, I would suggest only sending them the page or two from which you need data (instead of sending the whole doc).
- Tabula – This is a new and slightly more complex way to pull the data in to a CSV, but overall I think it is better. See the readme at the bottom of the page for installation instructions. Don’t get freaked out. It is easier than it looks.