Enroll America Putting Lipstick on Obamacare Pig

To “put lipstick on a pig” is a rhetorical expression that making superficial is a futile step for disguising the true nature of a product.

Meaning of “lipstick on a pig”

Enroll  America, Obamacare formidable PR team, is on a roll and on the road.  Over the next 100 days, using its PR skills, polished during the recent successful presidential campaign, Enroll America aims to sign up millions for Obamacare’s health exchanges, a fundamental first step to make the health law a success. 

Enroll America’s message will be ubiquitous – on TV, the Internet, and print media,  in state fairs,  in door-to-door knocking, from  churche pulpits, and at major  sports events.  Show biz and sports celebrities will endorse it. Kathleen Sibelius, HHS Secretary, is raising private monies to bankroll the Enroll America effort, and she hopes major league sports organizations, such as the  NBA, the NFL, and MLB, will come on board.

The problem with the PR campaign, however, may be not every person or organization will buy, carry, or transmit the message.  The NFL has  already said it will not play ball.  The American public,  physicians,  conservatives, small business people, and the young and health remain  skeptical.  

For good reason.  So far, three years after passage,  Obamacare’s promises – lower health care premiums,  wider access, and better care – have yet to be realized.  Americans fear even higher costs and higher taxes with care disruption with loss of access to health plans and doctors.

Will this widespread disillusionment with the law cause Enroll America to falter, or even fail? Or will the Administration's PR skills prevail?  PR may win.  The Obama team is putting over $8 million on the line.

Stephen Hayes of the conservative Weekly Standard, in a recent piece “ Putting Lipstick on the Obamacare Pig," says government PR has limits. Obama cites the business communities’s actions related to Obamacare – 20% have laided off workers,  41% have delayed hiring,  and 55% think Obamacare will raise the cost of doing business.

In view of these and other obstacles,  Hayes says  Enroll America faces an uphill climb.  It will be akin to “putting lipstick on a pig.”  The pig, presumably, is Obamacare dressed in big government clothing.  This earthy metaphor will surely evoke other proverbial expressions, “a pig’s ear, “ A pig in a poke,” “pearls before swine,” “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear,” “ A hog in armor is still a hog,” and “ The law is a machine in which you go in as a pig and come out sausage.” Some may even quote anonymous expressions like “Congress is like a hog. You must take a stick and hit it on the snout.” Obamanite  may even blame the public for being " as independent as a hog on ice.” Whatever happens or however you want to put it, Enroll America is taking Obamacare 's health exchanges to market.  As the nursing rhyme says  “ To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, Home again, home again, jiggety-jig.” We shall soon see if the jig is up, and how America's households will react.

Tweet:  Enroll America,  part of Obama’s PR election juggernaut, is on the road again, selling Obamacare health exchange, to a skeptical public.