Advertising, fundraising money talks in health care debate

NPR's Julie Rovner fact-checked several of the television ads being run about the health care debate. She found fault with several major ads, including ones sponsored by American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the liberal group Americans United for Change, National Republican Campaign Committee, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The ads covered issues from the public option to special deals cut for states, as well as how many people were really affected by steep premium rate hikes. She notes that some of the ads, though, were true: "we couldn't find anything to correct in ads being run by two of the most outspoken opponents in the health care fight — the insurance industry trade group AHIP, and the consumer group Health Care for America Now" (Rovner 3/18).

Meanwhile, Roll Call reports that campaign fundraising for some of the House Democrats who are up for re-election in November might be impacted heavily by the health care debate. "Observers will have to wait another month to see if the first-quarter reports of those Members will be among their lowest of the cycle, but one aide to a Democratic Member in a battleground district said this week that dragging out the health care fight certainly hasn't helped to fill campaign coffers." They report that Louisiana Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao, the only Republican to vote in favor of the health care bill in November, saw a large dip in his fundraising in the fourth quarter of 2009. "Meanwhile, some Democratic insiders are downplaying the significance that the health care debate will have in influencing fundraising." Some blame the downturn in the economy for lower fundraising across the board, instead (McArdle, 3/18).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.