Another Celebrity Sales Pitch for Obamacare

By James Hirsen

Last spring the White House managed to persuade a host of celebrities to go out and inject some stardust into an otherwise anemic Obamacare Web site.  Now Obamacare officials have responded with more celebrity carnival barking. This time the program is being referred to as the "Tell a friend, get covered" campaign.  The new effort includes daily messages from current pop figures and is designed to encourage friends to speak to fellow buds about the benefits of health insurance.

The administration has brought in People magazine's Sexiest Man Alive, singer Adam Levine, to kick off the new public relations initiative via the social media. "We don’t think that, by seeing a tweet, suddenly millions of people will go get coverage," Anne Filipic, president of Enroll America, told Bloomberg News. "Adam Levine’s tweet helps us begin, and then we can have a substantive conversation about what's available."

Adding to all of this are the findings of a recent poll by Harvard's Institute of Politics, which indicate that millennials have soured on the idea of the Affordable Care Act being beneficial for them. According to the poll, less than one-third of uninsured 18 to 29-year-olds are likely to enroll in Obamacare.

Apparently, the same people who delivered a lousy Web site tampered with the doctor-patient relationship, and caused cancellation letters to be sent out to millions are now placing their hopes in a modified hashtag, rap video, and the "Sexiest Man Alive." [more...]