My Birthday Wish for Obamacare; A Full Repeal

By Ashley Pratte, CP Op-Ed Contributor Wednesday, March 26, 2014

This week marks the fourth birthday of Obamacare but it's not all birthday cake and balloons-many people are not celebrating this year after the botched rollout and string of mishaps surrounding enrollment.

Nothing is merry about the fact that over six million people have lost their insurance coverage and are now struggling to find an affordable health care plan.

One group of people who certainly won't be celebrating is Millennials. Millennials are among the people most impacted by the disastrous law. They are expected to subsidize healthcare for the older and sicker generation.

With less than a week to go before the March 31 enrollment deadline, the White House is scrambling to enroll young people. The administration has gone so far as to pay for advertisements on the popular satirical news website, The Onion. The Onion is known for its hilarious and fictional news stories but to advertise something so serious as healthcare just goes to show what a joke Obamacare is really turning out to be.

Amid Pajama Boy, Between Two Ferns, and Richard Simmons, it's a toss up as to which desperate public relations stunt has been the worst. Young people are not enrolling because Obamacare is unpopular with them due to the high premiums they are faced with.

Millennials don't want to end up like Pajama Boy-a government dependent mooch who is living in his parents basement. Pajama Boy has become the poster child for the entitlement society that the Obama administration is perpetuating. Young people want to be independent and self-reliant. According to Young America's Foundation polling young people are distrusting of big government and have less confidence in the federal government's handling of programs after the mistake-ridden rollout of Obamacare.

Each of these ridiculous attempts to enroll young people has not proved fruitful for the administration. Youth enrollment sits at a stagnant 25 percent a far cry from the needed 40 percent by March 31. The administration has been quick to blame a bad public relations operation for low enrollment, but the fact is they have pulled out all the stops from A-list celebrities to National Youth Enrollment Day. The problem is not the public relations but rather the unpopularity of Obamacare among Millennials.

I wouldn't be surprised if the White House wished for more people to enroll before the deadline when they blew out the candles this year-but they will need more than a miracle. One can only hope that next year repeal of Obamacare will be celebrated rather than another birthday.

Ashley Pratte is a communications consultant in Washington, D.C.