Massive campaign for Obama hits air - $12 million in ads (POLITICO)

Massive campaign for Obama hits air

A new coalition on Thursday is launching $12 million in television ads to support President Barack Obama’s health-reform plan, in the opening wave of a planned tens of millions of dollars this fall.

The new group, funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry, is called Americans for Stable Quality Care. It includes some odd bedfellows: the American Medical Association, FamiliesUSA, the Federation of American Hospitals, PhRMA and SEIU, the service employees’ union.

The ads start airing at about 11 a.m. ET Thursday.

The group is likely to be the biggest spender in support of health reform. The campaign will serve as a counterweight to the critics at town meetings, which are getting saturation news coverage while Congress is out of town.

In a reversal from former President Bill Clinton’s 1993-94 health-care debacle, the group’s campaign is likely to mean that White House supporters keep the upper hand on the airwaves.

PhRMA’s participation is key, because the group has promised to kick in as much as $150 million for advertising and grassroots activity to help pass the president’s plan.

The debut ad is meant to shore up support among the conservative House Blue Dog Democrats, and to target swing senators. So it’s airing in Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota and Virginia. The first buy is expected to run for two weeks, with a weekly spend of around $3 million.

“This group has joined forces to communicate the specific benefits of reform at a time when there is a lot of misinformation about what health care reform actually means,” an official of the group said.

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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0809/26076.html

solution.
It was insurance companies. They want the plan of course (mandates, all those new customers) but not the public plan.
Still they didn't say that and the ad was pretty good.
But the worst combination would be no public plans but still mandates. Still this isn't the thread for that.

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