On October 23, Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade framed the Ravens’ partnership with Maryland’s health insurance marketplace as unusual, claiming that the team had “gone outside the NFL” because of political pressure from Democratic Governor Martin O’Malley, who wants to run for president. Co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck said that the Ravens were “the first to cave” to Democratic pressure to help enroll uninsured Americans in the ACA exchanges:
HASSELBECK: So right now he’s gone to the Baltimore Ravens. As you said, the NFL said no, we don’t want to be involved. But I think what’s happening is they know the millions of people that watch the NFL. They know the marketing machine that is the National Football League. And they understand how even breast cancer was brought to the front lines of what we’re talking about in donations and money through the NFL. And so they figure, OK, instead of doing a national sweep, which they’re doing with health care, we’re going to go team to team and see how many we can break. And the Baltimore Ravens were the first to cave. I thought they had a good defense.
(Source: MediaMatters.org)
