When the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year, many women are expected to opt out of it, despite its provisions that are aimed specifically at them.
Which means that a new video put out by a Virginia-based conservative group to convince college students to opt out of Obamacare is not just tone-deaf and creepy, it's also harmful.
The ad is part of a campaign funded in part by the conservative bankroll Brothers Koch to limit Obamacare enrollment when the law takes effect next year. The group is planning a tour of 20 college campuses – not many – Yahoo reports. It is unclear whether or how widely the ad will be broadcast.
"It is hard to tell if this is real or if it's a Saturday Night Live parody about the hypocrisy of extremists who want to be in every exam room in America but don't want to expand access to quality healthcare," Planned Parenthood said in a statement replying to the ad.
Women pay more for health insurance than men – at least 30% more – and they get less. Essential care such as breast and cervical cancer screenings are treated by insurers as elective. Women have to shell out co-pays for prescription birth control, well-woman exams and STD testing.
Advocates for women's health have embraced the Affordable Care Act because it outlaws discriminatory pricing and covers preventative screenings and birth control. It bans denial of coverage based on preexisting conditions. It shores up the Medicaid coverage many single mothers rely on. "The healthcare law has many new benefits for women," Planned Parenthood says.
Women themselves, however, have embraced Obamacare at a rate only slightly higher than the population as a whole – which is to say they are rejecting it. In a CNN/Orc poll last week, only 41% of women respondents said they favor all or most of the proposals in the Affordable Care Act (unnamed as such in the poll), versus 39% overall.
Women trust Democrats more than the GOP to look out for their health. According to a Kaiser Health tracking poll last year, women said that overall they trusted Democrats in Congress more than Republicans "to do a better job … making decisions about women's reproductive health choices and services" by a margin of 52-19.
There are many Republicans who have helped produce that gap, by sponsoring laws requiring women to undergo transvaginal ultrasounds; by seeking to outlaw abortion and birth control; by minimizing rape and making up stories about female physiology.
That's what makes the ad tone-deaf. Republican party affiliation plus women's health has never on this planet equalled persuasiveness.
The ad is harmful because it instills fear without facts. If it cared about women's health it might highlight the issues of preventative screening or the need to protect family care. Instead it features an Uncle Sam fright mask, a threateningly wielded speculum and a scream.
