March Madness: Healthcare Edition

With the deadline for enrollment in Obamacare approaching quickly on March 31, the White House has deployed one last Public Relations strategy to get 18-34 year olds to sign up.

 

President Barak Obama has turned March Madness into Healthcare Madness with the release of his brackets on Wednesday that also arrived with a “16 Sweetest Reasons to Get Covered” bracket. The bracket is made up of funny GIFs with reasons why you should be insured like "because accidents happen":

 The idea is to tie the Healthcare enrollment deadline in with March Madness to reach young healthy people who need to be insured in order to balance the healthcare system, with a focus on Hispanic and black youth who are the most likely to be underinsured.

Denis R. McDonough, White House chief of staff and foreign policy expert, used the analogy, “Somebody’s playing hoops, and they blow out a knee or something. And then all of a sudden, if you don’t have health care, you’re going to bankrupt yourself” as a way to get this audience’s attention.

The White House is using a sports-themed portal site  called GamePlan4Me which features games, videos, and superstar athletes explaining the benefits of health insurance.

In the last three weeks Obama has also video satellite called into the “The Ellen DeGeneres Show”, met with YouTube personalities including an Obama impersonator, called into Rickey Smiley’s hip-hop radio show, had an interview with a health care expert from WebMD, and even appeared on comedian Zach Gilifianakis’ show Between Two Ferns. I also heard Obama interviewed on Ryan Secrest’s radio show earlier this week… which was odd.

 

The first lady, Michelle Obama, also appeared ABC’s “Good Morning America” and made an appearance at a health care center in a black neighborhood in Miami.  Oh and let’s not forget this GIF of Michelle’s dunk that’s been floating around the web, too.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will have spent $52 million on paid media from January until the end of March on promoting Obamacare enrollment.

I have heard around campus a lot of Obama Buzz and a lot of conversations about health care happening so I’d say it was a job well done. We will have to wait to see if the call of action meets its expectations of having 6 million people sign up by March 31.