Creepy Uncle Sam wants you … to opt out of Obamacare.
In a pair of new ads funded by Generation Opportunity, a person in a maniacally grinning Uncle Sam mask readies patients for gynecological or prostate exams as the on-screen text warns viewers not to “let government play doctor.”
Congressional Republicans have tried and failed to repeal the health care law, but conservative activists hope to undermine the law by depriving the system of what it needs most to succeed: young, healthy Americans to subsidize the system for older, less-healthy Americans.
Open enrollment begins Oct. 1 for health insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act, and one big challenge in implementing the system will be convincing young people to sign up for the coverage mandated by law.
Without healthy people paying into the system to subsidize the sick and elderly, the exchanges may not be sustainable.
That’s why the Virginia-based Generation Opportunity is paying up to $750,000, according to a Yahoo News report, to help convince college students that they should risk a fine rather than buy insurance through the exchanges.
“What we’re trying to communicate is, 'No, you’re actually not required to buy health insurance,'” the group’s president, Evan Feinberg, told Yahoo News. “You might have to pay a fine, but that’s going to be cheaper for you and better for you.”
The 29-year-old Feinberg, who had worked as an aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and former Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), lost a Republican primary bid last year to challenge Rep. Tim Murphy (D-PA) in last year's Republican primary, drawing the backing of FreedomWorks and other tea party-affiliated groups.
Adults who fail to sign up for health insurance by the end of next year must pay 95 or 1 percent of their household income through the Internal Revenue Service, and the fines will rise thereafter.
Generation Opportunity plans to tour 20 college campuses to counter efforts to enroll students and other young people in the health care exchanges.
Feinberg admits that his group, which has ties to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, aims to undermine the Affordable Care Act.
“If young people do opt out en mass, it will put the law in a bind, for sure,” Feinberg told Yahoo News. “If it means they have to repeal it because it doesn’t work and that ends up crippling the law, well fine. Then they have to make some changes or repeal the law to make it work.”
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