Democrats, Republicans take health reform, midterm battle to the airwaves

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Sep 10 2010

The New York Times : The group "Revere America" is running a multi-million dollar television ad campaign aimed at defeating Democrats who voted for the health overhaul. "The ad campaign was announced by former Gov. George E. Pataki of New York, a Republican who is now serving as chairman of Revere America. At a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington on Wednesday, Mr. Pataki said the group hoped to raise and spend at least $5 million on the effort by Election Day. Mr. Pataki did not name specific Democratic lawmakers who would be targets of the operation. But he said at least one would be in his home state of New York" (Herszenhorn, 9/8).

The Wall Street Journal: "The ad buy would be in the seven figures, Pataki said. The group is just one of many outside the established party system seeking to drive voters to the polls based on the strong feelings over health care. … The group also plans to join a lawsuit against the new law" (Barrett, 9/8).

Time: A pro-reform group, "Health Information Campaign," is also releasing a $2 million ad campaign. It "focuses on unsavory insurance company practices that will be banned under the Affordable Care Act" (Pickert, 9/8).

USA Today: Republican and "Tea Party favorite" Rand Paul has released his first TV ad in his bid for the soon-to-be-open Kentucky Senate seat. "The ad, which shows Paul in his surgical scrubs and a white doctor's coat, criticizes President Obama's health care law for putting 'Washington bureaucrats in charge, destroying the doctor-patient relationship' and plays up Paul's outsider status. 'I'm a physician,' Paul says in the ad, 'not a career politician.'" Paul leads Democrat Jack Conway in polling to replace retiring GOP Sen. Jim Bunning (Fritze, 9/8).

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.