First, let me hit you with Oregon's bizarre, taxpayer-funded television ad promoting Obamacare:
"We're free to be healthy," even if our state government won't have our coverage exchange fully up and running in time for the looming deadline. But I'm sure the trippy feel-goodery and soothing music will make up for any such practical shortcomings. In any case, a conservative group called Generation Opportunity sees Oregon's weirdness, and raises them a creepy Uncle Sam:
There's something disconcerting -- something subversive, even -- about this spot. I sort of love it, even though it gives me the willies. I couldn't quite put my finger on the feeling it evokes until Allahpundit hit the nail on the head:
The hardest trick in making your case on health-care policy is first getting the public to pay attention. Mission accomplished. I laughed, but that’s because Uncle Sam here reminds me of the Burger King and the thought of the King hanging around exam rooms giving out prostate exams is funny and … oddly plausible, actually. You didn’t think he was crawling into bed with guys because he was that much of a fan of the Double Croissanwich, did you? An ironclad rule of advertising: If your mascot’s face is frozen in a maniacal plastic grin, he’s thinking about probing people. Hence the creepy/goofy effectiveness of this one.
Obamacare's creepy Uncle Sam is the sketchy Burger King:
Except instead of peddling breakfast sandwiches, he's messing with your access to affordable healthcare, and siccing the IRS on you if you don't comply. Yet for many people, non-compliance is by far the best deal. There's apparently more Creepy Uncle Sam to come, as the organization aggressively promotes the 'opt-out' message on college campuses. I'll leave you with an on-the-ground report from the Obamacare trenches. I relayed the worrisome personal account of an Arizona-based healthcare benefits specialist a few weeks ago; Instapundit passes along another:
Through serendipity I’ve ended up working in HIT (health information technology). I take 50 calls a day with independent insurance agents/brokers to navigate the hoops to qualify to sell on the FFM (Federal Facilitated Marketplaces). The Government websites they need to access to register are riddled with random error messages, and simply attempting to log in to complete this process routinely fails. The agents/brokers are, to a person, terrified. If they cannot complete this process by October 1st (the deadline) they are hosed. Nobody knows what to do, and this will only get worse when millions of consumers join the fray of the marketplace. It appears nobody scaled the back end to accommodate this exponential growth.
October 1. Tick tock.