Spitzer, union agree to stop ads (debate over health care)

[Omaha Steve]

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=571444&category=FRONTPG&BCCode=HOME&newsdate=3/13/2007

Spitzer, union agree to stop ads
Governor, SEIU/1199 call temporary truce in an attempt to reach a deal on contract

By ELIZABETH BENJAMIN, Capitol bureau
First published: Tuesday, March 13, 2007

ALBANY -- Even as debate over health care heated up at the Capitol Monday, key players in the battle quietly called a temporary truce.

SEIU/1199, the health care workers union, and its ally, the Greater New York Hospital Association, which have run television ads slamming Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposed Medicaid cost containments for almost a month, agreed to take the ads down -- at least temporarily -- starting today, according to a source familiar with the deal.

Spitzer, who has responded to the union and hospital ads with two of his own, including one that cast the health care industry as "crybabies," consented to do the same, an aide to the governor said.

The two sides agreed to "go dark" in hopes of creating a less charged environment in which to negotiate a possible deal.

FULL story at link.

[aquart]

1. Spitzer's ads would have made a Republican proud.

They were slimy and disgusting. And I didn't appreciate having someone sneer "special interests" meaning unions and not HMOs or drug companies.

I was appalled that Spitzer would do it. And ashamed of my vote.