Rhode Island Wants Moms To Urge Their Kids To Get Health Coverage Via Dating, Hookup Apps

Credit: alexanderljung / Foter / CC BY-NC-SA

Are you a mother in Rhode Island and want your grown children to get health insurance? Luckily for you, the Rhode Island state government launched a Facebook ad campaign today warning 23-33 year-olds that if they don't get health coverage through the Rhode Island exchange (HealthSourceRI) their moms could find them on OkCupid, Tinder, or Snapchat and urge them to get covered.

Really.

According to BuzzFeed the Rhode Island state government recently soft launched Nag Toolkit, a site that teaches mothers how to track down and stalk their kids on dating and hookup apps as well as social media apps to remind them to get health insurance.

Nag Toolkit

From BuzzFeed:

In a new campaign set to officially launch Tuesday, the Rhode Island state government is taking the longstanding national effort to use the opinion of mothers as the pathway to youth insurance enrollment to new levels. In Facebook ads aimed at state residents aged 23–33, the state will warn people that if they don't sign up for health care through the Rhode Island exchange — known as HealthSourceRI — then Rhode Island will help their moms find them on Snapchat, Vine, Tinder, Twitter, and OkCupid.

It's not an idle threat. Last week, the state soft-launched the Nag Toolkit, a website for moms containing simple instructions for how to join, entice, and stalk their children on dating websites with reminders to buy health coverage before the enrollment deadline passes at the end of March. A separate campaign aimed at moms will drive them to the Toolkit site, which also collects email addresses of young people submitted by their moms. The ads for moms are aimed at women in Rhode Island aged 45 and up.

Nag Toolkit urges mothers who want to find their children on OkCupid to come up with a "provocative username."

I have it on good authority from a Reason colleague that on Tinder both parties have to consent to communicating before *ahem* contact can begin, which may result in some interesting interactions. 

Comments

[Scarecrow Repair]

Start a campaign to use the nagging kit to contact Mr and Ms O. DDoS the Secret Service!

[Andrew S.]

Please tell me which politician's genius idea this is, so I can petition to have him involuntarily committed, as he's obviously a grave threat to himself and/or others.

This is a joke, right? Nobody actually thinks this is a good idea, right? RIGHT?

[Batgirl]

I was hoping this was a joke myself.

[John Thacker]

Note that the site will also helpfully just let you put in your child's email address, and then it will set up accounts and nag him/her for you! All sorts of griefing possibilities here.

[John Thacker]

"If this all seems too confusing, give us
your kid's email address and we'll do the nagging."

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Nag Toolkit urges mothers who want to find their children on OkCupid to come up with a "provocative username."

'MILF4Obamacare', 'CougarOnTheProwl4Insurance'

[DesigNate]

Nothing creepy about a mom stalking her kids on dating sites with false 'provocative' names. Nope, not one bit.

[tarran]

This violates Tinder's terms of service.

The state employees who are promoting it are technically committing racketeering by encouraging people to use false pretenses to set up fraudulent accounts on a computer system.

[tarran]

This violates Tinder's terms of service.

The state employees who are promoting it are technically committing racketeering by encouraging people to use false pretenses to set up fraudulent accounts on a computer system.

[Mr.Krinkle]

Pajama Boy and his mom can finally have that talk about insurance.

[The hand that whips the orphan]

So this is how Hillary got Bill to sign up.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

"Wait, this isn't my son! So who have I been sexting all this time? Gross!"

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Jocasta2014: "So, big boy, meet me in the alleyway tomorrow, and be sure to bring your proof of insurance, it's sexier that way."

KingofThebes: "Yeah, yeah, baby, whatever you say..."

Jocasta2014: "Because you're going to need to pay several years' worth of therapy bills when this is over, heh heh."

[kibby]

I'm not sure whether to laugh at this or feel sick. Maybe both?

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Eye patches and blindness adjustment therapy is considered minimum standard coverage under Obamacare.

[Sudden]

We truly live in a world beyond parody

[wingnutx]

Some of these kids are going to need access to psychiatric services after they accidentally proposition their mom.

[InfiniteRecursion]

This is evil.

[Notorious G.K.C.]

Tom Lehrer on Oedipus Rex:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScdJURKGWM

[BiMonSciFiCon]

To quote a wise young man: "This is pretty fucked up right here."

[PrnceXizor]

This also violates the content hosting company (Digital Ocean)'s terms of service, the DNS host (Network Solutions)'s terms of service, and the data host (Google)'s terms of service agreements.

DigitalOcean provides the server space for the website
Network Solutions provides access to the website, via DNS records
Google hosts a document that is used to save all of the collected email addresses for harassment later on.

Report this website to all three services and get them shutdown
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]

Google also lets you report abuse right from their site:
Go to the website
Enter an invalid email address ([e-mail], for instance - why give them valid information?)
Click Send
Click "submit another response"
Click the "Report abuse" link.

The two valid options are "Promotes hate, violence or illegal/offensive activities" and "Private and confidential information"

[BuSab Agent]

If I tried this, my oldest son who is the libertarian kwisatz haderach, would assume I was in a FEMA camp somewhere being tortured into it and be planning a rescue attempt.

[Jose Chung]

What? Grindr too good for nagging moms?