Obama ad inaccurate, "Politics of Hope" just more dirty politics

Tellurian

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Sat Feb-02-08 12:47 AM
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Obama ad inaccurate, "Politics of Hope" just more dirty politics

LOS ANGELES – Last night's presidential candidates debate between Sens. Clinton and Obama might have been as cordial as an ice cream social, but it didn't take long for the gloves to come off again.

Sen. Clinton's campaign held a conference call with reporters this morning, blasting a mailer that Obama has sent out, calling its claim that Clinton's healthcare plan forces people to sign up, and penalizes those who don't, disingenuous and a slur straight from the insurance industry playbook. One speaker on the call said it was as "outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois."

"Democrats are looking for Harry Truman and Senator Obama is giving them Harry and Louise," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, Professor of Public Health and Pediatrics at Columbia University and health advisor to the Clinton campaign.

Irwin was referring to an infamous 1993 television commercial, titled "Harry and Louise," which the Health Insurance Association of America ran against First Lady Clinton's universal healthcare proposal before it failed. In that ad, a couple sits at a kitchen table, trying to figure out how to pay for Clinton's plan, as a voiceover declares: "If we let the government chose we lose."

In the Obama mailer, a couple also is seen sitting at a kitchen table, with these words printed on the page: "Hillary's health care plan forces everyone to buy insurance, even if you can't afford it."

Another person on the call was Peter Harbage, a former health advisor to John Edwards. Harbage said he wasn't speaking for Edwards and that he hasn't joined up with a new campaign, but that he was so angered by the mail piece that he decided to speak out about it.

Any policy that would achieve universal coverage, he said, has to include some kind of mandate.
"It's about making sure everyone participates in the health care system," said Harbage, "and pays in what they can afford."

That ensures not only that everyone has access to health care but also that costs will be lower, he said. Other payers in the system bear the cost when uninsured people end up in the emergency room.

Obama himself conceded that when he called for mandatory coverage for children, Harbage said. He also argues that Obama is wrong when he suggests that affordability is the only barrier to health care.

If that were so, said Harbage, there wouldn't be millions of people currently eligible for public programs who do not take advantage of them nor "millions of people" who" make more than $100,000 without health insurance.

"The most disappointing thing for me about the mailer is that it's misleading about what Sen. Clinton has been talking about and what Sen. Obama has been talking about," he said.

Later in the call, Len Nichols of the New America Foundation threw this line out: "I am personally outraged at the picture used in this mailing," he said.

"It is as outrageous as having Nazis march through Skokie, Illinois," Nichols said. "I just find it disgusting that this kind of imagery is being used to attack the only way to get to universal coverage."

http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2008/02/clinton_camp_obama_ad_inaccura.html