The official Facebook and Twitter accounts for Healthcare.gov have shared a series of semi-unsettling images meant to inspire parents to remind their adult children to sign up for health insurance immediately after they turn 26. As people born in 1988 will be turning the magical age of 26 (and forced to cut the cord from mommy and daddy's insurance plan) this year, the campaign is using the hashtag #BornIn88 to promote new signups.
And the creepy, "serial killer"-esque girl version:
It should be noted that the man in the first ad picture is wearing a wedding ring, meaning he's married and still on his parents' insurance plan.
Healthcare.gov also posted a list of "26 Life Skills Every Person #BornIn88 Should Know By Now" on Buzzfeed. The eloquently-written listicle included three mentions of "cooking," among other "skills" that one would have expected the average child to have mastered by the age of seven, such as dressing oneself.
As someone who was #BornIn91, I am technically still eligible to be on my father's plan for a few more years. However, as I #GotAJob last year and #MovedOut, my father told me he was taking me off of his plan as I was now a #RealAdult. The actions of this administration have made it crystal clear that they believe my generation is a bunch of adult babies (or knuckleheads, to borrow a term from Michelle Obama) in desperate need of the comforting hand of a parent—either in the biological or governmental sense.
With large majorities of millennials disapproving of Obamacare, along with dismal sign-up rates, it's going to take more than a series of hashtags to get young people to buy into the farce that is health care reform.