The Rude Pundit: Where Are the Pro-Health Care Reform Ads When We Need Them?

[meegbear]

Fuck, the Rude Pundit will just do the work for you, DNC and other groups:

Ad #1: We're in a grocery store. POV of being behind a shopping cart, rolling down an aisle. Camera turns to a loaf of bread. Close-up on a sign: the price "$2.99" has been crossed out with a black marker. A new price, "$4.15," is written in. As the cart moves up aisles filled with similar signs, all with prices that have been raised, a voice says, "This past month, Anthem Blue Cross sent out notices to 800,000 individual health insurance policy holders informing them that their premiums were going to rise as much as 39%." A woman's hand picks up a carton of milk, and we see a sign indicating the price has gone from $3.49 to $4.85. "Anthem's parent corporation, Wellpoint, made $2.9 billion in profit last year." The hand puts the carton of milk back. We see that the cart is empty. It is left behind as the camera heads for the sliding doors. "And for people with pre-existing conditions, there's nowhere else to go." The doors open and the camera pulls back to reveal that the grocery store is in the middle of a deserted wasteland. There is, indeed, nowhere else to shop. End it with a tagline about telling Congress to pass health care reform. Or, even better, "Ask Senator (fill in your favorite Republican) why he/she stands with profit-making corporations and against reform."

There? Is that so hard? How about this one:
Ad #2: We're outside on a dark, cold, lightly-snowing night. A row of people in threadbare clothes are standing shoulder to shoulder, each holding a baby or toddler. A sinister-looking bureaucrat with a clipboard is walking down the row, looking at the children. He approaches one mother with a little girl. VO says, "United Health Care in Colorado turned down 2-year old Aislin Bates of Denver, Colorado for coverage because they said she was too thin." The bureaucrat shakes his head and makes a mark. The mother and child head off into the dark. He walks to the next parent, looks at the child, and nods. They head forward, into light. He goes to the next, a father holding a baby. VO say, "8-month old Jaxon Thornburgh of Dallas, Texas was denied health insurance because he needed simple therapy to help with an easily curable condition." Same thing: bureaucrat shakes his head, makes a mark, they head into the dark. Then he nods to two other parents, who smile gratefully and step forward. He moves to the next, a pair of parents with a boy. VO: "In New Jersey, HealthAmerica denied doctor-recommended life-saving treatment to cancer patient Kyler VanNocker, who is 5 years old." The bureaucrat shakes his head and continues on. The camera pulls back to reveal that those given the nod are going into a hospital. Those denied are heading into the snowy night. VO: "Call your Senators and tell them that your children shouldn't ever have to risk losing their health insurance."

With President Obama attempting some political outflanking maneuver with this proposed health care summit, the time is absolutely right to go after Republicans with ads on shows they watch, like, oh, what? NCIS? The Middle, with right-wing darling Patricia Heaton? Who knows? Or maybe head right into the belly of the beast and go for Fox "news." Go to where they live. Be shameless in calling them out. The factual material is there. If Focus on the Family can afford an ad during the Super Bowl, surely Health Care for America Now, along with, like, the SEIU, can buy some time during CSI.

Or make a really outrageous web ad where an executive from Aetna is just shooting sick kids in the head. It's pretty much the same point. That shit'd get all kinds of coverage for free.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[TwilightGardener]

1. My biggest complaint about the administration and the Democratic party

is their weak-ass, half-hearted messaging about health care. Spot-on, Mr. Pundit.

[customerserviceguy]

2. There are no ads

because there is no organization to fund them, all of the anti's have corporations and other institutionalized means of allocating a budget to this, finding an ad agency, and putting it into reality.

I guess it's also been hard to find traditional healthcare provider organizations (AMA, nurses' unions, etc.) to back reform when nobody knows how the final result is going to turn out. It would have been silly for a single-payer advocacy group to run an ad back in March, 2009, when it was unknown that single-payer was eventually going to be completely off the table.