Tuesday, December 3, 2013

You Ignored Your Market. (Part 2 of 2)

(Continued... from yesterday's part 1)
Millennials have to be ready to, without much persuasion of, invest in a system. We’re a generation that has been raised on systems. And we’ve seen them fail immensely. We want people to benefit and to have their needs taken care of (because, we do care about others). But to convince us we have to personally dump money (and a lot of it) into a system to help someone else, but not knowing if it’s going to work or not – is a far reach. Why not just go volunteer and help them directly ourselves?


An article in The Wall Street Journal notes:
Across the board, young people are interested in taking action by participating in volunteer opportunities offered through nonprofit young professional groups.” Let us help someone with our hands not through a complicated online process! Anyways, this healthcare effort is already proving true to be one more big government idea that does not work.
Millennials need to have money to invest money. If this generation has a job, they are paying for college loans, taking care of spouses and children, putting gas in the car or simply choosing to live simple lives. And money we do have, we enjoy spending it on new technology devices, travels, dining out or even helping causes. Try to convince us to spend money on a burdensome website that doesn’t work, offering something we don’t need – why waste your breath?!  
Millennials are technology experts. Computers, tablets, smart phones, are extensions of our brains. If we had built the website, it could have been done for one fourth of the cost, and been completed in half the time. Users would be singing its praises not mocking its existence. A good technology program is smooth, seamless, and fast. Our attention spans are short, and our expectation for technology to work quickly is a must. Anything longer than 20 seconds – merits our complaining and irritation.
In this article titled Obama continues to slide with Millennials, young people avoiding Obamacare, the author notes: "Young people, who are used to fast-working technology, have been discouraged from visiting the Obamacare exchange website because of the unending reports of glitches and problems. They’re impatient and don’t want to wait. Meanwhile, outreach efforts have largely fallen flat.
"The “hope” and “change” for which they voted in 2008 and 2012 hasn’t come to pass. Instead, young voters have seen the status quo coupled with incompetence. They’re sick of it."
And, finally - Millennials are smart. We have access to more information than any generation before us. We are not dumb. But, obviously President Obama and colleagues do not think highly of us – otherwise they would not demean us with their commercials that use sex, alcohol and laziness to woo us into their program.
The title of an article in The Washington Examiner says it best “Obamacare sales pitches insult Millennials' intelligence”. How grateful we are that someone gets it!

This op-ed piece goes on to say: “The administration seems to think the reason why Millennials are hesitant to sign up is because of a lack of persuasive messaging. But the problem isn't with the administration's sales tactics -- it's with the product itself...Sadly, the administration doesn’t seem to have figured out that just talking about Obamacare differently isn’t going to make it more attractive to young people...This latest campaign also is more evidence that liberals view young people as children.” (Emphasis mine.)
Another article from National Review says:  “Young enrollees are critical to the success of Obamacare… a lack of youth enrollments means that there are fewer healthier people to subsidize the sick. One bad sign: Young Americans, once one of President Obama’s strongest supporters, have turned against the law, and disapprove of it 51 percent to 42 percent, according to Quinnipiac.” (National Review)
Instead of solidifying Obama’s base, this debacle of a healthcare effort is pushing us farther away.
Perhaps, this generation has finally found its role in the economy. By applying our skill of stubbornness, we can dig our feet in a little harder and – if we really are the market needed for this monstrosity to survive – maybe, just maybe, Millennials will play a big role in preserving American freedom by causing its demise.
So, don’t blame us, Mr. President for not carrying the ball for you down the court, helping you hit the hole in one, or providing you with the winning tackle when it comes to your healthcare effort. We got you to the White House but it’s obvious you don’t respect our generation, the insight we possess and our ability to think, and not be swayed by lies.

If you really cared about us, you would ensure your team understood us. But you don’t and you didn’t. So, we’re checking out. You’re on your own on this one.  



 - ajh

Author note: As I was preparing this piece, an article came out from The Fiscal Times praising the results of a CNN poll that Millennials have hope in President Obama’s healthcare plan. Before you believe the data, consider where the poll came from.