text: A new round of advertisements unveiled by supporters of Colorado's health insurance exchange has ignited controversy that rippled through social media Tuesday and launched debate over their portrayal of women. 
   
   In one of the most discussed "Got insurance?" ads, produced by the liberal ProgressNow Colorado and the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative, a young woman holds a packet of birth-control pills and stands next to a young man, his hand wrapped around her waist. 
   
   So what's she thinking? 
   
   "OMG, he's hot! Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control. My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers," read the words in the risqué advertisement. 
   
   While the groups say the aim is to encourage young people to enroll in the state's new health insurance exchange — a pillar to President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act — some have said it belittles women. It also adds to the partisan back-and-forth over the new health care law. 
   
   The enrollment of young adults is pivotal to the new law because, say White House officials, they tend to have low anticipated medical costs and can keep insurance premiums lower. 
   
   Other advertisements in the campaign, which began in October, feature young people doing keg stands and downing shots from a "shot ski." 
   
   Amy Runyon-Harms, executive director of ProgressNow Colorado, defended the advertisements. 
   
   "The whole intention of these ads is to raise awareness, and that's what we're doing. It's great that more and more people are talking about it," said Runyon-Harms, who notes the ads only appear on social media and will not, for example, be displayed on billboards or buses. 
   
   A spokesman for Connect for Health Colorado, the state-run health care exchange, which is not associated with the ad campaign, declined to comment. 
   
   Republican strategist Kelly Maher called the ads "demeaning" and an attempt to distract from those individual policy-holders who have been notified that their 2013 insurance will not exist in 2014. 
   
   "This ad campaign is desperately trying to distract from the fact that exchange sign-ups have essentially ground to a halt. While nearly a quarter of a million Coloradans have had their plans canceled, ProgressNow Colorado and Colorado Consumer Health Initiative are demeaning and belittling women with shallow sexual caricatures and making light of serious women's health issues," Maher, executive director of the conservative Compass Colorado, said in a statement. 
   
   One of the many advertisements created by Progress Now Colorado in support of the Affordable Care Act. (Click image to enlarge.) (http://doyougotinsurance.com/) 
   
   An initial glance at the advertisements led Harsha Gangadharbatla, an associate professor of advertising at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to believe it was a joke toward Obamacare created by Republicans. 
   
   "I think it's a strategic mistake," Gangadharbatla said. "Consumers could see it as a joke, making it appear not to be a serious issue. And the issue of health care is clearly a serious issue in the United States. There's already so many negative headlines and problematic issues out there with rollout of Obamacare, so why add fuel with ads like these, if the true intent is to enroll more young people." 
   
   Gangadharbatla said the ads could also be viewed as stereotypical of millennials. 
   
   "Doing keg stands and shots makes it seem like that is the typical life of a young professional, which can be stretch," Gangadharbatla said. 
   
   As for the promiscuous ads featuring birth-control, Runyon-Harms said, "People get upset when you portray women as independent." 
   
   "We think this ad is really about healthy relationships and that people are taking control of their lives with health care," she said. 
   
   Kurtis Lee: 303-954-1655, klee@denverpost.com or twitter.com/kurtisalee ||||| WASHINGTON — Sign up for ObamaCare and get a sleazy hookup. 
   
   Colorado has launched a new ad campaign that attempts to entice young women to sign up for the new national health-care program with the promise of free contraceptives and carefree sex. 
   
   In one of the print ads, a flirty young woman holding a package of birth-control pills and leaning against a young man says: “OMG, he’s hot! Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control.” 
   
   She continues her steamy monologue: “My health insurance covers the pill, which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.” 
   
   “I got insurance. Now you can too,” she says. “Thanks ObamaCare!” 
   
   The ad, which is dripping with lusty sexuality, dubs the young couple “Susie and Nate … Hot to Trot.” 
   
   To be on the safe side, there’s an added warning: “The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs; condoms and common sense do that.” 
   
   The ad is part of the “thanks obamacare!” campaign targeting young Coloradans — and underscores how the law’s backers will say just about anything to lure young people to sign up for the new mandatory health coverage, an outcome that is critical to ObamaCare working as planned. 
   
   The entire health-care overhaul relies on the young and healthy buying insurance to offset the cost of covering Americans with pre-existing conditions and other new benefits. 
   
   An earlier “Got Insurance” ad in Colorado titled “Brosurance” featured a young man doing a handstand on a keg of beer as his two “bros” each hold up one of his legs with one hand and grasp a red plastic cup in the other. 
   
   “Keg stands are crazy. Not having health insurance is crazier,” reads the caption. “Don’t tap into your beer money to cover those medical bills.” 
   
   Colorado officials defended the ads, admitting they were provocative by design. 
   
   “It’s been fun to watch how it all plays out,” said Adam Fox, the director of strategic engagement for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. 
   
   “We’ve seen both positive and negative reactions, but if people are seeing the ads and purchasing health insurance, that’s a good thing.” 
   
   Traffic to the Web site that features the ads exploded so much on Tuesday that the site went down for a few minutes. 
   
   The depiction of young women as bubbly sexpots stirred outrage in some quarters. Conservative talk-radio host Dana Loesch in a tweet called it “The ‘You’re a whore’ ad for ObamaCare” and said, “So basically, hosurance.” 
   
   “Liberal ladies you have lost the right to call anyone a misogynist again,” tweeted Denver-based political blogger Kelly Maher. 
   
   Another ad in the series shows a young lady holding a package of birth-control pills and leaning against a cardboard cutout of hunky actor Ryan Gosling. 
   
   “Hey girl,” says the caption. “You’re excited about easy access to birth control and I’m excited about getting to know you.” ||||| The “bros” made famous in a Colorado advertising campaign doing keg stands for Obamacare are proving in a new spot that they’re not just party animals, but babe magnets too. 
   
   The latest offering from the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative (CCHI), which spawned the “brosurance” campaign to encourage young people to sign up for health insurance through Colorado’s state-run health insurance exchange, features a young woman who’s excited that she’s about to bed a bro. 
   
   “OMG, he’s hot!” reads the ad copy. “Let’s hope he’s as easy to get as this birth control.” 
   
   The ad features pre-coital “Susie and Nate,” with Susie flashing a thumbs-up and a stash of birth control pills. It’s already been dubbed #hosurance on Twitter. 
   
   “My health insurance covers the pill,” she says, “which means all I have to worry about is getting him between the covers.” 
   
   Well, not quite, as a disclaimer at the bottom of the ad reminds all the bros and babes it’s aimed at. 
   
   “The pill doesn’t protect you from STDs, condoms and common sense do that,” reads the comma-spliced fine print. 
   
   The ad is one of several new offerings released in the last two days as part of the organization’s “Got Insurance?” campaign. Many depict young men and women as heavy drinkers who are in to casual sex. Two ads feature a cardboard Ryan Gosling and riff off the “Hey Girl” meme. 
   
   “Hey girl,” one reads, “You’re excited about easy access to birth control and I’m excited about getting to know you.” 
   
   Another features five women about to slurp shots of alcohol off a ski. 
   
   “Shotskis keep us happy,” the ad reads. “Flu shots keep us healthy. Saving money on flu shots leaves us more money for fun shots.” 
   
   Yet another features a guy in his shorts crouched on top of a keg, preparing to drink straight from the tap. 
   
   “Not sure how I ended up here perched on top of this keg,” he’s saying. “I could totally fall, but that’s OK. My budget will stay balanced even if I don’t because I got insurance.” 
   
   The brosurance ads have garnered not only national headlines and mixed reactions, but a cameo appearance at the House Energy and Commerce Committee when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was grilled about the error-plagued Obamacare rollout. 
   
   During the hearing, Colorado Republican Rep. Cory Gardner displayed a blown-up poster of an ad showing three dudes doing a keg stand and pounding beer. 
   
   “Do you agree with this kind of ad for Obamacare?” he asked. “It’s a college student doing a keg stand.” 
   
   But college students and other young people who are relatively healthy are critical to the success of the Affordable Care Act, according to a spokesman for the Colorado Consumer Health Initiative. 
   
   “They’re important to stabilize the insurance prices throughout the nation and Colorado,” said Adam Fox, CCHI’s director of strategic engagement, in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation. 
   
   The ads were designed to be edgy in order to hit the target market, “young adults and women, primarily,” he said. 
   
   “I don’t think that we’re encouraging any particular behavior, but I think we’re acknowledging the reality that a lot of different behaviors happen whether we like it or not,” he said. 
   
   “I think there are always going to be people who try to take your message and twist it for their purposes, as long as what you’re putting out there is connecting with the audience you’re targeting, it’s successful,” he said. 
   
   The “Got Insurance?” campaign is expected to continue until at least Dec. 15. Fox said future ads might not be as edgy. 
   
   “I don’t think that edgy is a bad thing if it is reaching the people that you’re targeting,” he said. 
   
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target: – ObamaCare needs those wild and crazy millennials to get on board if it's going to work, and a Colorado ad campaign that previously drew scorn over ads featuring kegstands and urging young men to get "brosurance," is now taking fresh abuse over a racier ad. As the Denver Post reports, the ad, accused of demeaning women, features a young woman holding pills next to a young man. Her thoughts: "OMG, he's hot! Let's hope he's as easy to get as this birth control." "ProgressNow Colorado and Colorado Consumer Health Initiative"—the groups behind the ads—"are demeaning and belittling women with shallow sexual caricatures and making light of serious women's health issues," says a GOP strategist. Talk-radio host Dana Loesch referred to the "'you’re a whore' ad for ObamaCare," calling it "basically 'hosurance,'" the New York Post notes. The Daily Caller opted for the same term. Says ProgressNow Colorado's director: "The whole intention of these ads is to raise awareness, and that's what we're doing. "