Sunday, November 17, 2013

There's No Cure For Stupid

What a way to sell the idea of health insurance to the young people of America. Automatically assume that all 20-somethings are either sluts, drunks, painkiller addicts, sexual predators, exhibitionists, or all of the above. Not to mention dumber than dirt. Not to mention cartoonish.  These ads for Obamacare are currently running (online only, thank god) in Colorado:


 
So here's the problem. Even if these attractive dissipated models existed in the real world, they'd  never in a million years be able to navigate the website, let alone click on their computers.... let alone remember if they have a computer. I think that if I were a 20-something and looked at these ads, I'd be insulted enough to go without insurance, just out of spite.
 
The subliminal message to what O-Care marketers call the "Young Invincibles" is that their wild and crazy lifestyles make them prime candidates for those middle-of-the-night E.R. visits. Getting your stomach pumped out costs money, people. (To be fair, one of the ads is aimed at mountain bikers, who presumably aren't drunk when they break their numerous bones.) 
 
And needless to say, this ad campaign is already pure gold for the right wing. It's free premium gasoline ready for the pouring on the anti-Obamacare flames. Fox News will now likely announce that the president wants to turn all our pure young folks into hedonistic freaks. Obama is hooking girls on free birth control and urging them to have lots and lots of sex! And drink lots and lots of Shotskis! (that's when kids go to a party and drink shots off a ski. In case you didn't know. I didn't, until Urban Dictionary enlightened me.)
 
Ross Douthat, resident 20-something fogey at the New York Times, is probably writing it up for his Sunday column even as we speak. Remember all the fun he had with Obama's get-out-the-female vote "Life of Julia" and how she scored those evil contraceptives before milking the State for Medicare? Poor responsible Julia pales in comparison with this latest cast of characters.
 
I truly regret that I didn't sign up for Obama's conference call* with supporters Monday night. Because I would like to ask him what the hell his P.R. people were thinking. Makes me wonder if he even cares whether Obamacare goes down the tubes, especially since the ads were brought to the attention of HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius at that Senate hearing. Any deniability on the part of the White House at this point is simply not plausible.
 
GOP Senators, phony deficit hawks all, were mainly concerned that the ads are taxpayer-funded or government issue. They're not. My first thought was that it was an Onion parody. It's not. Like many other aspects of Obamacare, the publicity has all been neoliberally contracted out. Funnily enough, nobody seems to want to take credit for the Colorado murketing campaign, called doyougotinsurance.com.
 
They don't got no courage, I guess.
 
 
*Update 11/19: Silly me. It was not, as advertised, a Q&A at all. But it did have its moments of humor, apparently. Such as, when the Prez told listeners he wanted to "cut through the noise" he couldn't, because the call was a nightmare of white noise and buffering, buffering, buffering. But his handlers said 200,000 people did attempt to listen in, and that's all that counts in the grand scheme of things... his numbers.
 
 

3 comments:

Zee said...

I dunno.

I know some twenty-somethings who are highly educated (or on the road to becoming so), mature, responsible, and much more socially conscious than I am.

I think that they would be quite insulted by these ads. However, they may well be in the minority among today's young.

If Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber are what pass for "star-quality" entertainment these days amongst the majority of todays twenty-somethings, then the ads may be spot-on with respect to their target audience.

Zee said...

@Karen--

Thanks for the link to

"Another Website, Another Problem for Obama."

It would appear that the Obamabots are as incompetent as The One whom they worship:

"... a chat board on the website began filling up with messages:

'I can’t hear any audio?'

'Is everyone getting the "reconnecting" message?'

'I did refresh twice — still no sound.'

'WHERES THE SOUND YO?'

One supporter pleaded, 'Don’t tell me there are troubles with this live event like there were with the Obamacare website!!!!!'

...

'Just like healthcare.gov, this site doesn’t work either,' another supporter said. 'It is tougher and tougher to defend all of this mr president.' "


ROTFLMAO!!!

Zee said...

Yet another Obamacare horror story:

"Woman Hailed by President as Obamacare Success Story Now Can't Afford Obamacare"

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/woman-hailed-president-obamacare-success-story-now-cant-afford-obamacare_767868.html

(The link is to the Daily Standard, but the actual story is from CNN.)

'CNN reports that a woman the president hailed as an Obamacare success story just realized she won't be able to afford Obamacare because it's too expensive:

Jessica Sanford was cited by the president as an Obamacare success story at a health care event he had here at the White House in the Rose Garden on October 21, says a reporter for CNN from the White House.

That of course being just last month. The 48-year-old single mom from Washington state purchased what she considered to be affordable health care, life-changing event, she said, on the Washington state health exchange. She decided she was so excited about this news, she wanted to write an e-mail to the president to say that this had really changed her life and that she was thankful for the Afforable Care Act. The president included her e-mail in his remarks to people on hand for the event...

But days, just really three days after she was mentioned by the president, Jessica Sanford started having problems, she was receiving letters from the Washington state health exchange, reports CNN. The first letter telling her that tax credit was reduced, therefore, increasing the cost of her health care plan and the, take a look at this, then she received a letter just last week telling her that her tax credit had been taken away all together. Show you another document here, showing what the tax credit worked out to be... zero dollars according to this document that was provided to us by Jessica Sanford. She describes all of this as a roller coaster ride. Now she says she can't afford insurance in Washington state because of the new developments.'


The CNN video--which is more complete than the Weekly Standard's excerpts--goes on to say that others in Washington State are receiving similar letters regarding their miscalculated subsidies, and that Sanford voted for the Obama and supports the ACA.

However, after being held up as an example of what's right with the ACA, she now feels like she's an example of what is wrong with the ACA.

Despite the ObamaCare apologistas, the number of horror stories just keeps going up.