Posted on 10/13/2013 6:28:22 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON — As the battle over the health care law was grinding on — Republicans no closer to victory than when they forced the government shutdown — a different fight was rising on a recent Saturday from inside Sharkey's, a bar near the campus of Virginia Tech, 260 miles away.
Lured by free beer, gift cards and the chance to win an iPad, 100 students heard a pitch from the young staffers of a group named Generation Opportunity: Obamacare is a bad deal and you should opt out.
With enrollment in the insurance marketplaces under way, and tens of millions of taxpayer dollars being spent on a public awareness campaign, critics are aiming a provocative counter effort at a critical population: millennials, age 18 to 29, who may not feel the need or have the money for insurance.
Because if too few young, healthy people sign up, Obamacare will be denied the financial blood to support older, more needy participants. So the race is on for the attention of 2.7 million people deemed necessary to enroll in the first year for Obamacare to be successful.
Generation Opportunity, which formed in 2011 and gets funding in part from the conservative Koch brothers, is about to embark on a tour of 20 college towns nationally, including a Nov. 9 stop at the University of Miami. The pitch is that you shouldn't feel compelled by the government to buy insurance and it may be cheaper outside the marketplaces.
A blueprint for a forthcoming tailgate calls for games such as beer pong and Cornhole, free Taco Bell and beer. Pictures of people signing petitions to opt out would be sent over Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
The group and more recognizable conservative organizations such as Americans for Prosperity and FreedomWorks show how the fight has shifted from Congress to the grass roots. Young people are among the law's most ardent supporters but at the same time many are unaware of the benefits, providing an opening to critics.
"We're happy to watch the law crumble under its own weight by young people making good decisions," said Evan Feinberg, Generation Opportunity's 29-year-old president. "This is a creepy law."
• • •
Creepiness put this group on the map.
Last month, Generation Opportunity launched two videos featuring "Creepy Uncle Sam," who popped up between a young woman's legs during a gynecological exam, and asked a young man to roll over as he pulled on a surgical glove. The message: The government is messing with your health care.
Generation Opportunity, which has an office in Arlington, Va., and a staff of 30 full-timers, including a field director in Florida, never paid to put the videos on television. But they went viral across YouTube and Facebook, getting 3.5 million unique views in the first week, attracting widespread TV news coverage and a response from President Barack Obama.
"It was a really fun moment for me to be out at a bar in Washington and see people watching Creepy Uncle Sam, laughing about it, sharing it with their friends," said Feinberg, a former Republican aide on Capitol Hill and tea party candidate for Congress in Pennsylvania.
On Tuesday he was sitting at the bar in the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, buzzing with health care statistics and polished talking points. As Feinberg ordered an Oktoberfest beer, the waiter asked for his I.D. and that of the group's 24-year-old communications director, David Pasch, who delighted in the message the scene conveyed.
But a youthful vibe and YouTube smash are no guarantee of success.
The group has a budget of $750,000 for the opt-out campaign, a drop compared with the millions being deployed by advocates. The Creepy Uncle Sam videos have generated attention, but much of it has focused on how the message is misleading. The government is not running the health care plans.
"Some of the tea party's biggest donors, some of the wealthiest men in America, are funding a cynical ad campaign trying to convince young people not to buy health care at all," Obama said in a speech last month. "Now do you think if you get sick or if you get hurt and you get stuck with a massive bill, these same folks are going to help you out?"
Feinberg compared the videos to an attack ad Democrats made as Rep. Paul Ryan, the House Republican budget chairman, engineered a plan to restructure Medicare.
"They're not suggesting Paul Ryan is literally pushing granny off a cliff but trying to make a policy point," he said. "We're trying to make a policy point that Obamacare is creepy and invasive. It's obvious satire."
The group, he insisted, has never suggested people go without insurance, only consider that cheaper coverage may be available outside the marketplaces.
Gail Wilensky, an economist and former director of Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush, explained that the health care law pushes up rates for young people in order to make the program more affordable for higher users. The law says the most needy cannot pay more than three times of the least dependent. It should be 5-to-1, she said.
Obamacare offers tax subsidies to offset the cost, though how much depends on what a person earns and may not be available for some plans — for example, a catastrophic care plan in Florida for people under 30. The law also says people who opt out cannot be discriminated against if they want to join later, which may encourage some to simply pay the penalty, which starts at a modest $95 in 2014 but rises.
"Nobody meant to discourage exactly the people they need to get in, the young immortals," Wilensky said. "But they did a whole bunch of things to discourage them. All of these things by themselves are not unreasonable, but when you put them together it can be serious."
The work of Generation Opportunity and other detractors, she said, "could just tilt it even more. Even if their motivations are wrong, what they are suggesting may not be unreasonable. The message of check out and see what the alternatives are is perfectly sound."
Of course, even if people do follow the group's advice and obtain coverage outside a marketplace, they are still fulfilling a goal of health reform, to get as many people as possible insured. People who go outside Obamacare surrender any tax subsidies.
• • •
Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said enthusiasm has been high among young people. "We made quality health coverage affordable and now six in 10 Americans shopping for coverage in the marketplace can get coverage for $100 or less per month. That's a great deal for young adults and all other Americans."
The Obama administration is highlighting success stories in videos, a sign of the stakes. To promote the marketplaces it has enlisted celebrities and the popular website F unnyorDie.com, and partnered with a group called Young Invincibles.
AARP has a campaign to get mothers to pester their children to sign up. And Enroll America, a group working on an awareness campaign, has fanned out across college campuses well ahead of Generation Opportunity.
"We're on the ground every day," said Eric Conrad, a spokesman for Enroll America in Florida. Young people may have heard bad things about the law, he said, "but when they learn about what is available to them, they become interested."
While the fight is on, the early scorecard is not known. The government has declined to release enrollment numbers, saying it will wait until November because information is still coming in.
Feinberg would not cite numbers, either, saying only that "tens of thousands" of people have signed Generation Opportunity's online petition to opt out of Obamacare.
Experience from one of our family members (early 30s, single): existing minimal plan canceled as non-compliant with ACA. Alternative too expensive. Obamacare too intrusive. Result for 2014: opt out.
Hopefully the “Yutes of America” are beginning to figure this out.
LOL ... the democRATs refuse to negotiate and it is the fault of the republicans ... LOL. This newspaper must have a preference for dictators ... LOL. Otherwise, why tell a lie in the first sentence of the article ... LOL.
A privately funded group warning young people of the honey trap, or
Big Gov using our own money to enslave us?
Friday afternoon, I received a voice mail from my Insurance Agent, regarding our small business group plan.
My stomach is churning, until I can return his call tomorrow am.
I hate all politicians and will vote every incumbent out of office. I will also press for impeachment of the Jacka$$ in the White Hut.
I haven’t seen anything in the Media about the fact that the ONLY mechanism in the ACA for the IRS to collect the fine/tax for not enrolling in Obamacare is “TO DEDUCT IT FROM YOUR TAX REFUND”. To avoid that, set up your witholding so that you don’t get a refund. When is someone going to start talking about this?
I really don’t think there’s going to be much of an option for most younger Americans. They simply can’t afford to participate. It’s not a matter of choice or politics.....the money simply isn’t there in that demographic. I’m late 30’s and there’s no way I’d pay the rates being charged if I didn’t have insurance through work. I’m just waiting to see what my company gets charged going forward and whether or not I can continue to work depending upon what the cost is.
The question is not whether Obamacare will work, it can’t, but what the government tries to do once the numbers don’t add up to keep it propped up. Some speculate they’ll simply print more money to fund it. Oh. God.
Weimar Republic, here we come.
That won't work with the low information voter who thinks the tax refund is free money.
And to think....They are allowed to vote!
Soon, I hope.
It needs to be shouted from the rooftops!
The republicans PROMISED to repeal Obamacare. Now they say they cannot. They have failed.
(I have quit their party and will never vote republican again. One betrayal, shame on them. Two betrayals, shame on me.)
***
Obamacare is an elaborate scheme. This version is designed to fail, whereupon people will press for a single payer system. Goodbye America, hello Cuba!
Bump!
That’s great!
Bump!
I want you to think about the first time they send in their 1040EZ and expect a refund of $600 to $800 and it gets confiscated to cover their Obamacare fine. Just think about it.
We will finally see if the young folks so star struck with their idol in the WH will put their ideology ahead of their well being. I kinda doubt it. Obama in a most ironic sense may be our best ally in growing a new generation of conservatives.
At the very least I can confidently predict that they will prefer the nice car, clothes, iPhones, iPads, and other bling rather than bragging rights that they are true believers in the one. They might be persuaded into believing that the Republicans are to blame for everything, but that’s up to the Republicans
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