The Obama administration is hoping racing unicorns and “Street Fighter” battles will help in its quest to get more young people to sign up for Obamacare.
The White House hosted a competitive video gaming event on the popular Internet streaming platform Twitch on Monday. The goal of the event, which was scheduled to be a few hours of millennials playing video games, was to try to expand outreach to youths to sign up for Obamacare, which Congress and President-elect Trump want to repeal.
People use Twitch as a platform to stream videos of them playing games and enables them to connect with fans through a text chat feature. The platform gets hundreds of thousands of viewers on a given day streaming popular titles, and it enables some popular streamers to rake in thousands of dollars through subscriptions.
During the event, streamers were asked in between games what they thought about healthcare.
“I went to the eye doctor without healthcare and I learned that when you don’t do that you spend a lot of money,” said a streamer who goes by the name Actabunnifoofoo while playing a motor cross game called “Trials Fusion” that enables users to race traditional motorcycles or a variety of unicorns. He then said that he went on to get health insurance.
Other games expected to be played during the event include the massively popular fighting game “Street Fighter.” Gamers even went low-tech and played a few rounds of the board game “Operation.”
The first hour and a half of the event got more than 100,000 views on Twitch. The figure is well above some other popular streamers on the site, which can get 20,000 views and more while playing popular titles such as “Call of Duty” or “League of Legends.”
Other parts of the event included a walkthrough of healthcare.gov, used by residents in 38 states and the District of Columbia to sign up for Obamacare.
The event was part of expanded outreach to younger people to get them to sign up for Obamacare, as the administration has told insurers that it will take steps to improve the marketplace’s risk pools by getting healthier people to sign up.
A major problem facing Obamacare insurers is a sicker-than-expected population signed up for the law, coupled with many plans being underpriced when Obamacare went online in 2014.
UnitedHealth, for instance, has said it expected to lose about $600 million in the individual market business, which is for people who don’t get insurance through their job and includes Obamacare’s marketplaces.
About 2.1 million Americans selected plans on healthcare.gov as of Nov. 30.
The push for signups comes as the Republican-controlled Congress and President-elect Trump have made repealing the healthcare law a major priority in the new Congress next year. Republicans can pass a bill in the Senate that bypasses a filibuster and then send it to Trump.
The goal among Republicans is to keep Obamacare intact for a few years while a replacement plan is crafted and approved.
