Advertising on heath overhaul picks up again

Health care advertising is revving up again in advance of the final votes on pending congressional legislation.

"A slew of interest groups lobbying on the health care overhaul is cranking up the volume of advertising spots and grass-roots organizing this week as Congressional leaders race to put the finishing touches on controversial legislation to remake the nation's medical system," Roll Call reports. The Campaign Media Analysis Group says that groups spent more than $200 million on ads last year, but "there was a steep drop in these spots after the election of Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown in January, which deprived Democrats of a supermajority in the Senate and put health care reform on life support. But now Congressional leaders are back on track with a plan to vote on a health care reform package that avoids the need for a Senate supermajority by using budget reconciliation procedures. … Advocacy groups and professional associations, many with conservative ties that oppose the legislation, have taken the mid-March deadline as a cue to ratchet up their activity" (Roth, 3/15).

Meanwhile, "MoveOn is sending an email to its members today asking them to pledge to support a progressive primary challenger to House Democrats that vote against reform," Politico blog's Live Pulse reports. Politico has a copy of the message (Frates, 3/15).

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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.