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August 08, 2008 at 11:57 AM
The major presidential candidates and the interest groups that support and oppose them are trying to compete for voter eyeballs with Web health policy ads, and with television ads archived on the Web.
The makers of most of the ads seem to agree that the U.S. health care system needs changing, but the makers disagree vehemently about how the system ought to be changed.
One Web ad from opponents of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., HYPERLINK “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arw-yNas2xc”"Why Do Women Give McGain A Zero?”, shows a young woman walking into a clinic after McCain is in the White House.
The woman asks for a list of birth control options, and a smiling secretary hands her a blank sheet of paper and tells her that she has no birth control options.
Critics of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the Democratic nominee, have posted a Web ad that portrays Obama as a silent cardboard cutout concerning the idea of creating a government-run, single-payer health insurance system.
The ad, endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Program, Chicago, shows a woman speaking to the camera about her worries about high medical bills, increasing premiums and prescription drug costs, stating that she thinks single-payer health insurance is the best option.
The camera pans out and the viewer sees that the woman is speaking to a “speechless” life-size cutout of Obama. The ad ends with an announcer saying, “Real leadership on health care doesn’t mean just being better than the Republicans.”
The PNHP has posted similar ads that feature cutouts of McCain and Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.
