In an 11th-hour barrage, both sides in the health care debate are pouring millions of dollars into last-minute television commercials aimed at influencing the votes of members of Congress.
The air wars over health care have already steered more than $200 million to local broadcast and cable outlets, making the issue the most expensive single advocacy campaign in a single year. Most of that money, especially in recent months, has been spent in opposition to the Democratic attempt to overhaul the health care system.
The newest commercials include one, above, from Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group opposed to a health care bill. Its advertisement, which is running in 18 Congressional Districts and costs $750,000, features a woman who says new guidelines from a government panel on delaying mammograms would have left her cancer undetected.
And the ads include one from Americans United for Change, a liberal group that supports the legislation. It is spending $500,000 on radio and television commercials featuring President Obama and attacks against the insurance industry. It is aimed primarily at African-Americans viewers and their representatives.
The new buys come on top of an announcement earlier this week by a coalition of business groups, including the United States Chamber of Commerce, that it would spend between $4 million and $10 million on a new round of commercials to try to stop the legislation. America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group for insurance companies, also said it would buy more than $1 million of television time to explain why insurance premiums have been rising.
With such cacophony in the air, it is not clear how influential this last-minute round of advertising will be.
Health Care for America Now, a liberal advocacy group that spent millions of dollars on advertising in favor of health legislation over the last year, said it was holding off on new commercials for now.
“We’re spending our time and energy right now making sure that what needs to happen procedurally actually happens and reminding members to stay strong,” said Jacki Schechner, a spokeswoman for the group.
Besides, she said, “We can’t pay for advertising the way the industry and the chamber can. We had money, but not their kind of money — why try to compete with it?”