Understanding Medicaid Expansion

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) is a nonpartisan research and policy institute that advances federal and state policies to help build a nation where everyone has the resources they need to thrive and share in the nation’s prosperity. CBPP combines rigorous research and analysis, strategic communications, and effective advocacy to shape debates and effect policy, both nationally and in states.

A team of communications staff, researchers, and subject matter experts from CBPP came to Graphicacy to help create visual storytelling materials that were informative, friendly, and accessible.

Graphicacy, in close partnership with the CBPP team, had to find a way to humanize the issue of Medicaid expansion. The goal was to show the catastrophic consequences of significant, unexpected medical expenses for people without coverage and how closing the health insurance coverage gap would not only benefit individual workers but also businesses and the state economies.

Graphicacy had an opportunity here to create a portfolio of flexible visual assets that, paired with text, could be used for a variety of purposes in communications efforts for Medicaid expansion.

Working closely with the CAP team, Graphicacy designed characters and graphic components that could be used in a highly modular way, both in video assets as well as static infographic shareables.

• Motion Graphic Video – We created a cast of characters to represent a variety of typical American workers and followed one of them, “Jane,” in the video to show how all of this mattered to a relatable individual in their daily life. The video was helpful in quickly explaining what an insurance coverage gap means, why it exists, how it impacts the lives of everyday people and the benefits of expanding Medicaid with some simple charts and graphs to validate the message.
• Information Graphic Shareables – CBPP wanted to create a companion set of state-specific infographics – short blocks of text paired with an illustration or chart that were knitted together into a simple narrative. These elements were created in a modular way so they could be mixed, matched, and lightly edited for each state in the outreach effort.