"Throwback Thursday," or #TBT, is a popular activity on Instagram or Twitter that involves users posting older pictures of themselves. Yesterday, President Obama's official Twitter account urged users to post pictures of themselves "in casts or with crutches" with the hashtag #GetCoveredNow.
Tomorrow, share your own #TBT "life happens" photos—and tell people to #GetCoveredNow. pic.twitter.com/1GUKt5W6MU
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 19, 2014
As of 11:30 a.m., only one Instagram user had complied with the president's request, and it appears that she already had health insurance:
#tbt to one of the many times I'm glad I had health insurance. If you aren't already covered, #GetCoveredNow before the March 31st deadline! (@barackobama made me do it)
The troubling message behind this tweet is that if a person has insurance, they are free to act recklessly. This shouldn't be encouraged. There is still a need to act with a sense of caution, regardless of ones insurance plan. While this Instagram outreach may seem a little strange, when one considers that the average age of an Instagram user is between the ages of 18-29, aka the demographic that's needed to, you know, make Obamacare actually financially stable, it begins to make sense. The desperation is showing as these ridiculous campaigns continue, and if the current Instagram hashtag search is any indication (only 41 photos total have the #GetCoveredNow hashtag), my generation just isn't buying into the claim that we need insurance through the Obamacare exchanges.
Twitter user Amy Lutz came up with the perfect rebuttal to this odd request: It's not the government's job to make sure she has insurance.
#TBT Yes, life happens. It was my responsibility to make sure I #GetCoveredNow, not the government's pic.twitter.com/aY0uNxVjR9
— Amy Lutz (@amylutz4) March 20, 2014