Ads Hide Obamacare Truth: It’s Generational Theft

Is massive stupidity covered under Obamacare? What about sexual promiscuity and heavy drinking? Those are some of the questions raised by a controversial ad campaign that aims to encourage younger Americans to sign up for health-insurance plans created by the Affordable Care Act.

But there’s a deeper issue that the new “Got Insurance?” campaign ignores completely: Why should young and relatively poor people be forced to sign up for insurance that charges them above-market rates to subsidize rates for old and relatively wealthy people?

In this sense, Obamacare is simply the latest instance of generational theft being perpetrated against younger Americans. It’s a feature and not a bug of the President’s signature health care law that insurance premiums for those under 30 are likely to increase significantly to allow premiums for older Americans to fall. Indeed, the whole plan hinges on getting 2.7 million whippersnappers out of a total of 7 million enrollees to sign up in the individual market during the first year. If too many older and sicker folks flood the market, the system will crash even faster than the HealthCare.gov website.

The ad campaign, which plays off the popular “Got Milk?” ads, is not the work of the Obama Administration. It is the brainchild of two nonprofits, ProgressNow Colorado Education and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. In one of the scenarios depicted, three college-age frat-boy types (a.k.a. bros) are about to chug a huge amount of beer. The text reads, “Brosurance: Keg stands are crazy. Not having health insurance is crazier.” [1]

Another shows a young woman wryly flashing a pack of oral contraceptives while a stubbled hunk smiles in anticipation of a hookup. “Let’s Get Physical,” reads the text. “OMG! He’s hot. Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control.” [2] A third shows a child using what appears to be a machete to slice into a pumpkin. “Trick or Treat It,” explains this one. “He set out to carve the pumpkin. He ended up carving himself.” [3] The nonprofits have said they want to attract attention and inject a bit of humor into educating young people.

They’ve certainly attracted attention. Rolled out in late October, the ads have exploded on Twitter in recent days, and they directed so much traffic to DoYouGotInsurance.com that the site became even more popular than it was grammatically challenged, regularly displaying a “bandwidth limit exceeded” error message.

Whether the ads are funny–or just sort of insulting to young people and taxpayers subsidizing Obamacare–is a matter of opinion. Wags on Twitter, for instance, quickly retitled the “Let’s Get Physical” ad “Hosurance,” a term that became a trending hashtag for a little while.

This much is certain, though: Things are not going well for Obamacare. Just over 100,000 people signed up for new insurance in October–1.5% of the 7 million that the government hopes to have by March 31, the end of the open-enrollment period. In the program’s first month, the AP reported, just four people (!) enrolled under the Affordable Care Act in Delaware (which, like 35 other states, is using the dysfunctional federal exchange hosted at HealthCare.gov) And if Kentucky’s state-run exchange is any indication, young people in particular are avoiding Obamacare. The Wall Street Journal reported that about 4,600 people signed up for insurance in the Bluegrass State during October. Out of that total, just 24% were 34 and under, and the rest were 35 to 64. (People older than 64 go directly into Medicare.)

There’s no reason to believe that even the greatest ad campaign in the world will jack up the youth numbers to where they need to be. Yes, young people foolishly believe themselves to be indestructible. But the actuarial truth is that most of them won’t ever need the sort of wide-ranging benefits mandated by Obamacare.

And given Obamacare’s ban on excluding people with pre-existing conditions and the relatively small financial penalties for not having insurance, the smart move for many people–whether young or old–is to wait until you actually need health care before shelling out for monthly premiums.

Younger Americans may indeed be reckless enough to do keg stands and have unprotected sex on a regular basis, but they’re not so dumb as the “Got Insurance?” ads–or the architects of Obamacare–seem to think.n

Gillespie is the editor in chief of Reason.com and a co-author of The Declaration of Independents: How Libertarian Politics Can Fix What’s Wrong With America