While the government is threatening to shut down over the Affordable Care Act, also referred to by some as Obamacare, singer-actress Jennifer Hudson took to the Internet in a spoof of the hit show “Scandal” that clearly lays out the benefits of the proposed health care act.
The references to Kerry Washington’s character, Olivia Pope, are impossible to miss and the overall tone of the promotional video are so hilarious that you almost forget you’re listening to real solutions to real problems Americans face every day.
Hudson slipped into the famous white coat that Olivia Pope rocks consistently and revealed that her name in the comedic but informational parody is Lydia Cole – it doesn’t get much closer to Olivia Pope than that.
In the spoof, Hudson takes on the role of the Scandal “fixer,” although she makes it very clear that she would prefer to be called a “covert scandal manager.”
The problem is all of the so-called scandals that are coming her way are real-life issues that will be fixed by the Affordable Care Act.
In one scene, she meets with two mysterious men in a dark alley, but after they take off their hats, it is obvious that both of them are average everyday American citizens.
The older of the pair looks at his partner, who turns out to be his son, and tells the “fixer” that the young man is out of college and doesn’t have health insurance.
That’s when Hudson explains that under the Affordable Care Act, kids will remain under their parents health care plan until they’re 26.
In the current state of the economy, it is nearly impossible for many recent graduates to find sustainable jobs and remaining under their parents’ health care is a simple solution that would benefit many families.
The skit also touches on other benefits including how the ACA will cover preventative care for women’s health, and even how easy it is to sign up for the medical coverage at healthcare.gov.
The video remarkably combines comic relief with simple logic to show Americans the benefits that could come with universal health care. Of course, it takes much more than a parody of a hit TV series to prevent the government from shutting down, but it does show that there are still people who aren’t afraid to let their voices be heard.
The president of Funny or Die, the website that posted the parody, explained that the project was privately funded, joking that any funding for the site from the government would have already come to screeching halt by now.
“If there was ever any money for ‘Funny or Die,’ which there never was, I’m sure it would have been cut by the sequester long ago,” president Mike Farrah joked back in July.
