Sebelius Says Obamacare Just Needs a New Name

It’s not the higher premiums. Not the fact that Americans are losing their doctors or that they’re being forced onto plans they don’t like — including Medicaid. It’s not even that the website launch made users think they’d time-traveled back to the land of CompuServe, circa 1991.

No, says former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the real problem with the Affordable Care Act — Obamacare — is the name.

In an interview with POLITICO Wednesday Sebelius said that “Obamacare, no question, has a very bad brand that has been driven intentionally by a lot of misinformation and a lot of paid advertising.”

Insisting that Obamacare is working, Sebelius said, “I think we may need to call it something … in the future … different.”

Just a simple branding problem, right? Like that time Kentucky Fried Chicken removed “fried” from their name at a time when consumers were shifting to more health-conscious food choices.

Jeff Dunetz at Yid With Lid asked the Twitterverse to help the former HHS secretary with new names for their beloved government healthcare. Here are a few gems:

https://twitter.com/GomesBolt/status/542856901491306497

@HumpDayNR @AdamBaldwin Funeral Director Full Employment Act. #HDNR

— Smokin Monkey, Chief Reply Officer (@ARaised_Eyebrow) December 11, 2014

https://twitter.com/Criblecobble/status/542858535483478017

https://twitter.com/Browncoat_Atty/status/542857744525819905

https://twitter.com/Beefsteak101/status/542858021819678720

@HumpDayNR @AdamBaldwin I can't believe it's not health insurance.

— Les Rankins (@LesRankins) December 11, 2014

https://twitter.com/AdamBaldwin/status/542866914838462464

https://twitter.com/habib2001/status/542860293815427073

Alas, some skeptics and eternal pessimists on Twitter mocked the idea that a new name would be able to cure all that ails the Affordable Care Act:

#Sebellius thinks the way to fix #Obamacare is to change the name. You know, like how we fixed exploding Pintos by renaming the brand.

— Rob Jones – Austere Scholar (@robjones3030) December 11, 2014

Sebelius suggests changing name of #Obamacare Whenever folks realize Dems lying "change the message" like #globalwarming to #climatechange

— Kathlena (@kathlena1) December 10, 2014

The name & failed marketing didn't make #Obamacare fail. Was failure of law authors to understand policy details & consequences.

— Mike Enzi (@SenatorEnzi) December 11, 2014

https://twitter.com/AdmiralAckbar3/status/543133741049462784

In my opinion, this guy wins Twitter and should have the honor of renaming Obamacare: