Just what President Obama and Sec. Sebelius needed to overcome their PR disaster…
Here’s what some folks in Colorado have come up with to try to help Obamacare along:
The ads, which all live on the DoYouGotInsurance.com website, are a collaboration between Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education, and reference the famous “Got Milk?” ads.
In one ad — called “Let’s Get Physical” — characters named “Susie” and “Nate” are described as “hot to trot.” Susie gives a thumbs up while holding a back of birth control pills.
“OMG, he’s hot!” the ad reads. “Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers. I got insurance.”
Somebody was Rocky Mountain high when they came up with this. And while they carried it out, too.
You know, if Wayne and Garth from “Wayne’s World” (“Party on, Garth!”) had come up with this, even they would have been doing it ironically. (And yeah, I know they’re trying to use irony here, but very, very badly.)
Set aside how offensive this is to constituencies who don’t much like Obamacare to begin with. If were a member of the target audience, I would be especially offended. Because even when I was a college student attending actual keggers, I was more rational, and more articulate, than this:
Not sure how I ended up here perched on top of this keg. I could totally fall, but that’s OK. My budget will stay balanced even if I don’t, because I got insurance.
The language reads like some old fogy’s notion of the way tweens think and speak. (Are kids really saying “gnarly” again?)
My personal nomination for the worst bit in the whole campaign — the text in the “keg stand” ad that says:
“Don’t tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills.”
Oh, no. Wouldn’t want to do that. Heaven forfend.
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Apparently the room where this idea was pitched contained neither young people nor adults.
The campaign operates on the humor stratum ordinarily reserved for newspaper comic strips that are not Doonesbury.
I’m not a Millennial (but being born in 1981 I’m pretty close) so I can’t speak for them, but personally, I’d take it as an insult that these folks believe this is the way to relate to me.
And as bad as the keg stand one is, the one with the girl saying “Let’s get physical” is even worse. It’s not just that they conceive as Millennial women as choosing their politics and their health-care according to how the get their birth control pill. They also seem to believe that young women are infantile and incompetent enough to need the help of government in securing $8 birth control pills from Wal-Mart. They’re also just treating these women as sluts. Sorry to use a bad word there, but that’s what the ad is portraying.
Do Millennials really see themselves this way? Holy jeez, I hope not.
As the next generation up, I bust on Millennials all the time. But I’m doing that as trying to shame them when I point out their bad characteristics. The opposite is happening in these ads. Here are ad creators are trying to APPEAL to Millennials. They present themselves as their “friends.” They “get” you, girl.
And these ads, picturing Millenials in this manner is what they think appeals to you — pictures of young people in party poses and nitwit young things who think Ryan Gosling (a whole ‘nother ad) is like sooo dreamy and my God where would I get birth control pills if Obama didn’t draw me a map?
Really?
If this actually is appealing to Millennials — and they find this to be non-demeaning — then every insult I’ve shot their way is true.
This is just sad. Sorry I can’t be my usual ray of sunshine here.
Costs a lot more than $8 a month to get birth control pills. First off, you have to see a doctor. Chances are s/he will require a Pap smear, which is a great idea, but before Obamacare, not free. Then you have to get a prescription for one of the types that are cheep, which may not work for you…..
You forgot to put the quotes around “free”. Someone’s paying for it.
Just my personal opinion, but it would seem like the best option would always be the one that didn’t involve drugs that change the way a woman’s body functions. There have to be side effects both short term and long term.
I’ve always kinda thought that, too. It seems like almost any approach to birth control would be preferable to something that so profoundly interrupts an entire system in the body that way.
Of course, we do that with a lot of things. When the ear doc put me on a diuretic to help with my hearing problem, I said something like — “OK, so the problem is an imbalance in fluids in some tiny little sacs in the inner ear that are too small to show up on an MRI — but you’re going to change the way my ENTIRE BODY processes fluids in order to address that?”
He answered in a way that made me think my question was pretty stupid. He said that’s what most systemic drugs do. If I were taking an antibiotic for an ear infection, I’d be treating my whole body just for that problem in one small part.
Which is worrisome.
I’m anxious to see the technology of “Fantastic Voyage” and “Innerspace” so tiny people in tiny submarines can travel through our bloodstreams and treat exactly what’s wrong. Now that, to me, sounds like a practical approach…
I find any therapy that involves Raquel Welch to be very appealing…
Well, in fact, stopping ovulation, as most, if not all BCPs do, is incredibly protective for ovarian cancer, which is hard to detect before it is terminal. BCPs are far safer than pregnancy, and medical abortions safer than childbirth.
Not going to rise to the bait of an abortion discussion…
… and sticking to my point…
I’m just into natural. Always have been. I wouldn’t want to dye my hair, for instance. And it bugs me to think of taking something that interrupts the natural, healthy functioning of a part of the body. For instance, it does bug me to take the diuretic. I was wondering why I sweat buckets when I work out now. Finally realized it’s probably those pills. Which is creepy.
But I do want to regain my hearing…
Asthma and allergy drugs are different. I take them because there’s something WRONG with me, and they help me function more like a normal person. It just bugs me to think of taking something that interferes with a normal function — like sweating.
Natural human life expectancy is much, much shorter…..especially for women, back in the good old days when they’d die in childbirth, not counting puerperal fever….
In the wild, a dog lives to about 18 months.
Pretty sure that Planned Parenthood will clear women for birth control pills for a cheap exam, Kathryn. Thank goodness for that, right?
These commercials look like Rush Limbaugh created them, based on how he thinks those of us who like universal health care think.
It’s Colorado – if you’ve been paying attention to them recently- this is par for the course.
Because even when I was a college student attending actual keggers, I was more rational, and more articulate, than this:
-Brad
So when did you lose all that rational, articulate flair?
Seriously, this is pretty good stuff for a young person. As middle aged dudes we’re not supposed to get it.
Besides providing compatible, just-in-time (no waiting lists) organ transplant opportunities from mandated digitization of medical records of healthy young people, Obamacare promises to subsidize healthcare for urban gang members across the U.S. Anyone recall how many gangs the sheriffs have reported just in Lexington and Richland? Anyone know how many gang members file tax returns on their illicit income?
Supporters of “universal healthcare” are going to be responsible for the emergence of deteriorating healthcare for all but political, union and celebrity elites. The fantasy utopia, something for nothing, abysmal financial planning and waste (e.g. Solyndra) are going to be Obama’s legacy. There is simply not enough bipartisanship to cover up all the scandals that are going to be uncovered.
Bingo!
From Yahoo News:
“The federal government has spent at least $1.25 billion marketing the new health care law — especially to this younger generation. Even after Wednesday’s update, it’s still not clear whether those outreach efforts are working.”
Now, imagine if instead of spending 1.25 billion on marketing Obamacare, that same money had been distributed to those people who cannot afford insurance in the form of vouchers. Add in the cost (500 million at least) for the healthcare.gov website and you’ve got 1.75 BILLION dollars that could have been spent directly on coverage instead of overhead. Let’s say a decent family policy costs $12,000 a year. That’s 150,000 families that could get “free” insurance, or about a half million people covered.
The REAL fantasy utopia is that the system we left behind was actually working. Folks let’s be real honest here. The old way, the system that in the international realm of healthcare systems, was by far and away the most expensive and one of the least effective. While costs continued to soar, results stagnated and in many working class areas were actually in decline. This wasn’t isolated to the lazy or gang bangers. Many folks who worked every day were dying because they lacked health care. Up to 60% of all bankrupsies were the result of health cost issues. Double digit annual cost increases were common. So to suggest that the ACA has somehow ruined healthcare is ridiculous.
Having said what is obvious for the gazillionth time I admit the ACA is not a great system. It is far too complex. Far too limited and does result in higher costs for some. I get that. What we need is not a return to the failed system of 2002 but to work out the kinks to allow more competition in the healthcare market while at the same time ensuring everyone has an opportunity to visit a doctor without fear of going bankrupt. We don’t need some kind of voucher system as some have proposed. That only makes things more complicated. Ideally we would move away from the for-profit insurance model completely. But absent that we could reign in the profits and salaries of this greedy and utterly inefficient system. Only competition can do that in a free market system. And the lack thereof was perhaps the biggest failing pre-ACA.
When you go away from a for profit model, you move toward a system that has a higher rate of fraud and abuse. You also lose highly skilled doctors who will move to “concierge” plans or pay-for-service niches (like plastic surgery). Overall quality of care will regress in a single payer model.
When you tweak one area it has impacts on other areas. There are plenty of non-insurance related areas that could be addressed that would improve the system without making it a government run enterprise.
“The old way, the system that in the international realm of healthcare systems, was by far and away the most expensive and one of the least effective. ” -Bud
And as usual you blame corporate greed and the few bad doctors. Why then are U.S. drugs sold in Canada less expensive than in the U.S.? HINT: Litigation (trial lawyer greed) is far and away more prevalenta nd costly in the U.S. because we have more lawyers. Germany, the U.K., Swedewn, (in fact, name any socialized healthcare country you prefer, and awards for bad outcomes are limited).
Yet, the Obamacare you tout as reform does nothing to control spiraling litigation costs (ask outrageously wealthy John Edwards, for example, how he became so rich). In fact, Obamacare encourages evermore litigation.
And for the record I’m at home waiting for visit from my grandchildren. It would probably be less stressful to be at work but it should be a fun day. Hopefully I’ll still have some hair before they leave this afternoon.
Wonderful! Some of mine are spending the night at our house tonight. Speaking of hair, that’s when I’ll find out how much our little guy has left…
OMG, this is like, the worst ad campaign ever!
Call Obama, that’s the name, and away go tax dollars, down the drain!
Too many syllables. You need to leave out “tax” for it to work…
Nobody’s joining
it’s too bad
private coverage
can’t be had.
Save with
Obama Care!
Deathly panels
rationed care
Dems have given us
a scare
Obamacare!
Pre-existing
can’t be good
now you’ll pay for
your neighborhood
with
Obamacare!
I should probably get a job with Adco…
Insurance used
to be a player
now he’ll move us
towards single payer
Obamacare!
An Obamacare Haiku:
Website is broken
My plan was cancelled today
Hope I don’t get sick.
healthcare.gov train wreck
4-0-4 error page
government at work
Oops.. missed a syllable…
healthcare.gov sucks
4-0-4 error page hell
government at work
This is the system bud and Brad want… from a just released BBC report on the National Health Service:
“Thousands of patients are needlessly going blind because they are waiting so long for appointments at NHS eye clinics, a report warns. As many as four in ten eye specialists and nurses admit that their patients are losing sight unnecessarily as they cannot get vital checks or treatment. ”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2506930/Thousands-eye-patients-waiting-long-NHS-treatment-going-blind-Charity-says-budget-cuts-nursing-numbers-elderly-mean-clinics-cope.html
“The number of patients waiting more than nine months for hospital treatment in Wales has more than doubled in six months, figures show. The number of patients waiting jumped from 5,414 to 11,672, in the six months since March this year.”
Waiting patients
going blind
at least they will not
see these signs
Obamacare!
Interesting you should mention Wales. I actually know someone who lives in Wales and she loves the British healthcare system. In fact she laughs at the ridiculous state of the system in the US. Doug, you can throw out these statistics til the cows come home but they don’t change one thing. The British system provides quality care for it citizens for much less than we spend here. And I do mean MUCH less. Some of the waiting problems that you continue to cite could be resolved with a bit more funding. Nevertheless the problems are tiny compared to the thousands upon thousands of people who die in this country each year because they do not have healthcare until its too late.
I’m confused, bud says it’s better in Wales, but Doug states that the wait times have doubled. How is that better? Part of the problem may be the shear number of people we’re talking about, Wales has the population similar to the Charlotte metro area. What percentage of those people are unemployed or on welfare. I don’t believe the unemployment/underemployment problem in Great Britain is anything near that of the US.
The difference is that I post facts and bud posts an anecdote from some he knows.
No. I have posted actual statistics many, many times. The US pays far more than the UK for healthcare. Any number of google searches will show that to be the case. And average life expectancy here is lower than most western countries. It’s actually the conservatives/libertarians who resort to cherry picking this or that media story to somehow make the case that the broader statistics are somehow bogus. It’s a losing strategy though because when you start searching for horror stories about deaths from lack of healthcare the US is the world leader.
In any event the UK system is not really my ideal. It’s way underfunded. The French actually have one of the best. Waiting times are much less than in the UK. They do spend a bit more. You get what you pay for UNLESS you’re an American. In which case you pay the most of anyone in the world and end up with a life expectancy about the same as Cuba.
Average life expectancy statistics are meaningless unless you can control for all variables, especially racial demographics. What’s the life expectancy of a white female in the U.S. compared to a white female in other countries?
The French are also going broke thanks to high taxes and lousy work ethic. Socialism fails when people start thinking someone else will pay for their benefits.
The unemployment rate in Great Britian is above 7%, well in the same range as the US. Wales has the highest unemployment rate in all of Great Britian, close to 8%.
Naturally, according to bud, everything is better in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and any country not named than it is in the US. Hell, we have people dying in the streets, poverty and hunger driving people to commit heinous crimes, people standing in lines longer than the eye can see because they don’thave health insurance. Damn, I’m ready to leave the country, aren’t you? Why continue to live in such a hell-hole as the US?
I believe we’re at a point where we can start to see the hole at the bottom of the toilet we’re swirling toward. Almost all points are pointing to something bad happening, if we hit the perfect storm the crash of 1929, drought of the 1930’s and Great Depression are going to look like a walk in the park. Way too many people who depend on the government for survival today.
Because it’s home. But I do want to make it better rather than festering over a problem than can be fixed. That’s about as American as apple pie.
Wales has been chronically underemployed since the closing of many/most coal mines….
I think I’ve found part of the target audience for this campaign. Check this video, if you can stand it.
Hope Obamacare covers orthodontics, cause Mamrie Hart needs that toof gap fixed. The short blonde is cute, though.