Multimillion

On Tuesday, a multimillion-dollar state ad campaign will break out across Oregon introducing people to something that's not even open yet: Cover Oregon, the state's new health insurance marketplace.

Most people who don't get health coverage through Medicare, their employer or the Oregon Health Plan will have to shop for new policies next year as federal changes kick in.

Many of those will use Cover Oregon: a public agency that operates a soon-to-be operational website and call center to let people comparison-shop between plans, enroll and qualify for income-based tax credits.

The reforms are complicated and controversial. But you wouldn't know it from the first wave of the Oregon-centric ad campaign, which features snappy jingles, simple messages and feel-good artwork at a cost of $2.9 million.

The TV and radio spots feature the slogan 'Long Live Oregonians,' and performances by popular Oregon artists like folksinger Laura Gibson, mariachi folksinger Edna Vazquez, the hip-hop group Livesavas, and Matt Sheehy of bands like Lost Lander and Ramona Falls.

There will be print and online ads as well.

Aside from its health-related slogan, the campaign goes conspicuously light on words like federal health reforms, insurance or the Affordable Care Act -- aka Obamacare. Instead, the ads describe Cover Oregon as 'our healthcare marketplace.' The idea is to avoid controversy and the polarized debate surrounding the federal law.

'We didn't want to interject ourselves into the national debate,' says Rocky King, executive director of Cover Oregon. 'It's about Oregon, it's not about Washington, D.C.'

Cover Oregon's startup funding comes from about $300 million in federal grants, and later will receive funding from an insurance tax.

It goes live in October, when tax credits will be available to small businesses, as well as individuals earning up to $45,900 a year or a family of four earning as much as $94,000.

The goal is to enroll about 400,000 people in its first year, half in commercial coverage and the rest in Medicaid-funded programs like the Oregon Health Plan. Another 600,000 enrollees are expected to follow in succeeding years.

The ad spots were prepared by the Portland agency North, working with the public relations firm Metropolitan Group, which together share a $9.9 million Cover Oregon contract.

Mark Ray, co-owner and creative director of North, said the initial ads are to 'create almost a hello' sort of vibe, while stressing an 'Oregon pride, Oregonians take care of themselves kind of thing.'

Later ads will be more specific in educating people and directing them to the Cover Oregon website.

Ray, a musician himself, says he was inspired by the work folksinger Woody Guthrie did for the Bonneville Power Administration in the 1940s, writing songs to glorify the federal agency's then-controversial dam-building activities. In elementary school, his own kids sang Guthrie's 'Roll on, Columbia.'

The firm reached out to local artists by saying, 'If you were just given this line, 'Long Live Oregonians,' how would you celebrate that?' Ray said. 'Think about this as something kids will sing in elementary school for fifty years.'

Why spend so much on ads? King said his agency has only a few months to get people up to speed. Surveys show most people are ignorant of the 2014 changes as well as Cover Oregon. And he said the state's per-enrollee ad spending is comparable with counterparts in other states.