OPINION:
So few people have enrolled in Obamacare that desperate Democrats have stooped to launching a war on women with demeaning and sexist ads.
The latest marketing campaign implies that young women would only be interested in Colorado’s government-run health care exchange if they get coverage for birth control pills to have sex with strange men.
The most offensive ad shows a 20-something woman named “Susie” holding a packet of birth control pills with an open-mouth, wide smile. She is wearing a flesh-colored, low-cut, sleeveless top, tight skinny jeans and open-toed black heels.
Susie is leaning against “Nate,” who is wearing an untucked shirt with the top four buttons undone to show his hairy chest. He has a smirk on his face and one hand in the pocket of his jeans.
“OMG, he’s hot!,” Susie is shown saying. “Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.”
Neither Susie nor Nate is wearing a wedding band. There is an asterisk at the bottom of the ad that says, “The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs, condoms and common sense do that.”
A second ad showing a young woman holding a pack of birth control pills gives the appearance she is possible drunk and at a party. “Ali” is wearing a black, one shoulder, silky dress, bare arms and legs and high heels. She is leaning against a cutout of actor Ryan Gossling — a takeoff of the popular meme “Hey Girl.”
The copy reads from the male actor’s point of view: “You’re excited about easy access to birth control and I’m excited about getting to know you.”
Colorado’s Senate Minority Leader Bill Cadman was shocked by the ads.
“I don’t think I have ever seen anything more degrading or offensive about women,” the Republican leader told me Tuesday. “As a marketing professional, I am trying to understand who they think they are targeting.”
Mr. Cadman added that the ads are “as absurd as Obama’s non-health-care system.” Colorado set up one of the state-run health care exchanges.
The latest ads are part of a marketing campaign from Colorado Consumer Health Initiative and ProgressNow Colorado Education that are a takeoff of the “Got Milk?” ads that instead say “Got Obamacare?” These groups first went after young men with ads showing them doing keg stands and binge drinking.
Liberal groups paying for marketing campaigns to target young people to buy health insurance is to be expected. The whole Obamacare scheme will only work if young, healthy people get into the system so that the government can hand out subsidies to the uninsured.
But treating young women like cheap sluts who don’t care about their health or well being other than getting cheap birth control pills to have sex with strange men is offensive. These ads should be taken down.
Emily Miller is senior editor of opinion for The Washington Times and author of the book “Emily Gets Her Gun … But Obama Wants to Take Yours” (Regnery 2013).
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