Two young people told Fox News on Wednesday that the White House’s Obamacare PR push — including a fruity new ad featuring jammies and hot chocolate — isn’t inspiring them to sign up, with one claiming that “everyone I know laughed at it.” (RELATED: Caption this: Smirking hipster in his jammies sells Obamacare)
Twenty six-year-old Andrew Leonard, who is losing his health insurance under Obamacare, and 26-year-old Corie Whalen from Generation Opportunity spoke to Fox’s Stuart Varney about President Obama’s new media campaign targeting them and their peers. Varney asked Leonard if the advertisements made him more likely to sign onto the exchanges.
“Well, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s gotten so much more expensive to get healthcare,” he responded. “If you look at the plan they’re really pushing for us — the catastrophic plan — even if it’s free, we still have the $6,000 deductible to meet, so it really doesn’t change the situation for any of us unless we get cancer or something crazy that puts us in a debt with a $20,000 medical bill.” He later added that he’s going from “such an inexpensive, decent plan to going to just a crazy, expensive plan that doesn’t really meet my needs.”
Whalen ridiculed the White House’s most recent ad, which features a hipster-looking young man in his PJs cradling a cup of cocoa. “I saw that ad last night, the ‘Pajama Boy’ ad, and I laughed,” she said. “And everyone I know laughed at it, and really proceeded to mock it.”
How do you plan to spend the cold days of December? http://t.co/Rwf5AYc3bG #GetTalking pic.twitter.com/PBQ397yLf4
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) December 17, 2013
“What Andrew’s going through is exactly what we’re talking about at Generation Opportunity with our ‘Opt Out of Obamacare’ campaign,” she added. “My peers are facing higher cost, less options under Obamacare. But what we want people to know is that there are options outside of the expensive Obamacare exchange that they can look into.”
Obamacare will not survive without millions of young, healthy people subsidizing older, sicker individuals on the exchanges. Whalen said her organization is focused on what’s best for young people, not on what’s best for Obamacare. “Obamacare is actually a really bad deal for young people,” she claimed. “At the end of the day, young people should do what’s best for them.”
President Obama also met a group of mothers at the White House Wednesday, trying to convince them to urge their children to sign up for Obamacare. “Well, you know, as much respect as I have for my mother, she doesn’t tell me how to live my life,” Leonard said. “I haven’t lived under her rules for years now. She can give me some advice but, really, it’s not going to help me make my decision.
“I imagine most of my peers are in the same situation,” he concluded. “We’re adults, we’re not children.”
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