Scaring Young Women from the Health Care Law

The latest strategy to undermine the health care law: scare young women.

That is the strategy used in an ad released yesterday. The ad starts with a young woman walking through a doctor’s office as ominous music is playing in the background. The woman walking with her says “Oh, I see you decided to sign up for Obamacare.” The way she says that, we suspect there is a problem. The doctor visits the exam room and then leaves her alone on an exam table. And we are left waiting and wondering – what is the truth about the coverage she signed up for through Obamacare?

The ad never tells us the truth. The ad never tells us that, if this woman signed up for insurance through the new health insurance marketplace, she would:

• Not have to pay any cost sharing on her doctor visit if it is a preventive well-woman visit
• Be able to get her birth control without any cost sharing
• Not be paying more for her coverage because she is a woman
• Have maternity care, including prenatal services covered without cost sharing
• Be confident that her insurance will pay for services for a pre-existing condition
• Not have to worry that her insurance will kick her off if she finds out she is sick
• Be receiving financial assistance to help her pay for her insurance if she is single and her income is under about $46,000.

Instead of sharing the truth, the ad tries to

• scare young women from getting health insurance
• scare young women from accessing low cost coverage that could help them stay healthy or get healthy
• scare young women from accessing coverage that could keep them from medical bankruptcy.

And how can I not talk about the hypocrisy? When I see a grotesque Uncle Sam standing with a speculum in his hands, I think of efforts to reduce women’s access to abortion. Yet the Koch brothers, who funded this ad, have also funded organizations that try to limit women’s access to birth control and abortion, including the recent draconian abortion restrictions passed in Texas.

When it comes down to it, do they just throw whatever tall tale might work to keep women from accessing health care? That’s what it feels like.