When Somebody Says It’s Not About The Money…

With apologies to H.L. Mencken, when Obamacare supporters say it ain’t about the cha-ching or ba-bling, it’s about the cha-ching and ba-bling.

That is the the lens through which one should view the video “Forget About the Price Tag,” the winner of the Dept. of Health and Human Services ’ Healthy Young America video contest in which people submitted and the public voted on videos designed to sucker encourage young people to purchase an insurance plan on the exchange.

Here’s the video.  The key part happens at about 0:46:

A few thoughts.  First, if you have to sell something by telling the target consumer to “forget about the price tag,” isn’t that a tacit admission the product is overpriced?  I’m hard pressed to think of the last time a commercial made a similar pitch.  The reason, I suspect, is advertisers know that if you encourage people to ignore the price of what you’re selling, most of the public, including younger people, see multiple red flags flying up the poles.

moneygreedSecond, when the young lady says it’s not about the money (okay, cha-ching), what she means is that Obamacare supporters hope young people age 18-34 are dumb enough to think it shouldn’t be about the money.  That way, the young people can help fund the older and sicker people in the exchange for whom it is definitely about the cha-ching.  It is also all about the ba-bling for the Obama Administration, because without enough young people buying insurance, the exchanges are headed for disaster.

In the end, I doubt the young are that easily fooled.  For more, see Jeffrey Anderson in The Weekly Standard.



The National Center for Public Policy Research is a communications and research foundation supportive of a strong national defense and dedicated to providing free market solutions to today’s public policy problems. We believe that the principles of a free market, individual liberty and personal responsibility provide the greatest hope for meeting the challenges facing America in the 21st century.