President, First Lady Turn to Moms for Help Selling Obamacare
Marguerite Bowling /
Official White House Photo by Pete Souza
The Obama Administration is circling back to a strategy it has tried since May and most recently in November to get more uninsured adults into Obamacare: Enlist mothers to encourage and even nag their adult children to enroll in the insurance exchanges.
President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will host a joint White House event today that will try to portray the roles mothers could play in promoting Obamacare.
“Moms are a key part of our ongoing outreach and enrollment efforts and have an important role to play in helping their adult children, family members, and peers to sign up for coverage,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
With young adults vital to keeping the Obamacare insurance exchanges from collapsing, the Administration is trying a variety of tactics—from celebrity endorsements to controversial advertisements—to draw in more young adult enrollees.
But, according to Heritage Foundation scholars, there are plenty of reasons why moms should not subject their children, adult or otherwise, to the bad deals cooked into Obamacare.
Young adults face disproportionate burdens, such as:
- Rate shock from the higher premiums, thanks to Obamacare’s community rating rule.
- Less qualification for subsidies to pay for those more expensive insurance plans.
- Greater likelihood of losing their current coverage, especially if they received a health plan through a college.
- Obamacare’s government takeover of their student loans, which has spurred higher college costs.
- Potentially crushing taxes in the future, as Obamacare’s skyrocketing costs outpace government resources.
Today’s event comes as millennials have increasingly abandoned the President’s signature health law.
In an effort to showcase an alternative to Obamacare, Heritage has released commonsense reforms that include helping uninsured Americans, primarily those with pre-existing conditions.
