"by all means, throw in a bag of cannabis”

Bloomberg, trying to dream up ‘marketing’ schemes to get people to overcome good economic sense and join OBAMACARE

Signups for Obamacare going badly? Get ‘CREATIVE’.

Each next step measure, each nervous scrotum tightening thought is more galactically MIND BENDING than the one before.

FREE HIGHS TO JOIN HEALTH CARE?

Instead of outreach programs and sappy TV ads with parents imploring their kids to sign up for Obamacare, President Barack Obama needs to start thinking creatively if he wants his signature legislative achievement to be a success. What motivates kids? In fact, what motivates any of us?

Incentives. This White House has failed to grasp what makes individuals and businesses tick. Whether it’s taxes or regulations, Obama doesn’t understand the basis of a capitalist economy. Whoever was responsible for setting the Accountable Care Act penalty — a tax, according to the Supreme Court — wasn’t thinking because it’s much too low: $95 a person, or 1 percent of taxable income, whichever is greater, beginning next year. The penalty rises sharply after that. But if the point is to create an onrush of enrollees at the start, the penalty rate is cheaper for many young, healthy individuals than the premium cost of a health-care policy.

The share of 18 to 34 year olds signing up on nine of the state exchanges ranges from about 10 percent in Minnesota to 37 percent in Massachusetts, with most clustered around 20 percent, according to the New York Times. Obamacare can’t work with those kinds of results. So what can the president do to drum up interest among the young and the healthy before it’s too late? Here are a few ideas off the top of my head.

First, announce and advertise that everyone between the ages of 18 and 34 who enrolls on the health-care exchanges by the end of the year is automatically entered in a lottery. Winners will receive everything from a free iPhone or iPad to a full-year of health-care underwritten by Uncle Sam. Refer a friend and get a discount. Buy one (year), get one free. In states that have legalizedmarijuana for recreational use — Colorado and Washington — by all means, throw in a bag of cannabis.