Groups Take Health-Reform Debate to Airwaves-$52M Has Been Spent So Far on Ads...

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Groups Take Health-Reform Debate to Airwaves
$52 Million Has Been Spent So Far on Ads in What Could Be Record-Shattering Battle

By Ben Pershing
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 5, 2009


The increasingly heated fight over health-care legislation is saturating the summer airwaves, with groups on all sides of the debate pouring tens of millions of dollars into advertising campaigns designed to push the cause of reform forward, slow it down or stop it in its tracks.

Drugmakers, labor unions, both national political parties and the sector currently under the heaviest fire -- health insurance companies -- are all weighing in with significant ad buys. Nationwide, more than $52 million has been spent this year on health-care reform-related ads, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, setting the stage for what may be a record-breaking legislative battle.

"This has the potential to certainly be the biggest as far as an advocacy advertising campaign goes," said Evan Tracey, CMAG's chief operating officer.

Much of the spending has been focused on national cable news and the local Washington market, the best way to reach policymakers and opinion leaders in the capital. But as members of Congress leave for August recess, advertising money will follow them, as the target audience for health-care messages shifts from inside to outside the Beltway.

While viewers in key states have seen "a steady trickle" of ads all year on issues such as the economic stimulus package and the climate change bill, Tracey said, "the faucet's going to be a little wider on health care because there are so many different stakeholders, and so much opposition, and it's such a big issue."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080401447.html?wprss=rss_politics