Freedom Line Blog

If you know a young person who is unemployed, has no health insurance and spends waaay too much time using social media, the Obama administration has just the timewaster they’re looking for.

At tellafriendgetcovered.com, America’s healthiest non-working adults can absorb six straight hours of sales pitches and snarky humor trying to lure them into purchasing an Obamacare-approved health insurance policy that they probably won’t use.

One segment has a balding Richard Simmons bantering with a Miley Cyrus look-a-like. There are also ads featuring Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, and former NBA stars Magic Johnson and Alonzo Mourning.

The one with Hudson portrays the starlet telling a distraught father of a recent college graduate not to worry – his uninsured son can stay on his company’s policy through age 26! All seems well in la-la land as father and son ignore the fact the company will be paying up to four more years to cover someone who isn’t helping the firm increase its revenue.

Sedentary viewers are encouraged to tweet, post and otherwise spread the fleeting joy they get from watching taxpayer-funded, government-directed infomericals. The goal is to create a social media buzz among young adults to increase their enrollment in Obamacare exchange plans.

The move is motivated by desperation. Currently, Obamacare-related enrollments by young and healthy people are at 24%. Originally, the Obama administration estimated that this cohort needed to be at least 40% of Obamacare’s risk pool to make it financially viable. The disparity could be disastrous.

If the White House’s celebrity-themed push doesn’t work, it won’t be for lack of creativity and spending. It will be because a sizeable number of young and healthy people wind up laughing at the administration’s pitch, not with it.

H/T: CNBC