Creepy Uncle Sam Ad Suggests Young Women Should Opt Out of Healthcare

With enrollment in the new health insurance exchanges established under the new federal health care law set to begin on Oct. 1, GOP haters of the measure are wasting no time in targeting young women to encourage them to opt out of the program. Ironically, they say it's because a woman's health care shouldn't be decided by the government.

Seriously. No joke. At least that's the message behind a creepy new ad targeting students at 20 colleges across the country, the dream child of the Koch brothers-affiliated Generation Opportunity. In the ad (see below) a deranged-looking Uncle Sam figure appears to give a young woman a gynecological exam. The message at the end of the spot reads "Don't let government play doctor" followed by "Opt Out of Obamacare."

That's rich, considering the same folks urging young women to forgo no-co-pay access to well-woman exams – including life-saving cancer screenings – and to birth control are the same men who have funded the Concerned Women for America, the right-wing anti-reproductive rights group that lobbied so hard this year for the passage of the draconian omnibus abortion bill, House Bill 2.

Indeed, in Texas and elsewhere, Republican lawmakers have been working overtime to inject themselves into women's healthcare – from mandating that women receive state-sponsored, medically-inaccurate information about abortion provided in the Women's Right to Know pamphlet, to requiring extra ultrasound examinations and stripping funding from family planning and eliminating broad access to the Women's Health Program – which makes this current ad push all the more patronizing and dishonest. At best.