They're Back
'Harry and Louise' are now pushing for reform.
August 18, 2008— -- Fifteen years after the insurance industry employed Harry and Louise to fight health-care reform, the couple is back.
But this time they are pushing for reform.
Back in 1993, Ben Goddard wrote and directed a series of spots for the Health Insurance Association of America featuring "Harry and Louise" as an average middle-class couple concerned about the bureaucratic complexity of the Clinton reform effort.
This time Goddard has resurrected "Harry and Louise" for a single "multi-million dollar" ad which will air during the national political conventions on the Sunday morning news shows, national cable, and on broadcast television in the Denver, Colo., and St. Paul, Minn., media markets.
The cost of the ad was split evenly between the National Federation of Independent Business, the American Cancer Action Network, the American Hospital Association, the Catholic Health Association, and Families U.S.A.
"Look at the five groups," Goddard told ABC News. "There are things that they don't agree on." But they "share a single goal and that is to put health-care reform at the top of the agenda."
The Health Insurance Association of America, the group behind the anti-reform ads in the 1990s, no longer exists.
But Karen Ignagni, the head of a successor organization -- America's Health Insurance Plans (A.H.I.P.) -- is planning to be on hand at 10:00 am ET on Tuesday when the coalition pushing for reform unveils its ad at the National Press Club.
"We're supportive of their efforts," said AHIP spokesman Robbie Zirkelbach. "We will be participating in the event and Karen will be there tomorrow."
TiVo Alert:
Be sure to tune into ABC's "Good Morning America" on Tuesday for a profile of Obama aide Reggie Love.
The Kicker:
"The natural state of this race is to be a referendum on George Bush and John McCain and the policies that John McCain supports at home and abroad. But Obama, I think, in the last couple of weeks, has allowed himself to become the center of conversation."
--Former Kerry Pollster Mark Mellman on Barack Obama to ABC's "World News with Charles Gibson"
On the campaign front. . .
JOHN MCCAIN
-- Expected to campaign in Louisiana
BARACK OBAMA
-- 9:00am ET – Orlando, FL: Obama addresses the VFW 109th National Convention at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL (Polk results 2004 Orange County: Bush 49.6%; Kerry 49.8%)
-- 6:30pm ET – Raleigh, NC: Obama holds a Town Hall Meeting at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds Exposition Center, 1025 Blue Ridge Road, Raleigh, NC (Polk Results 2004 Wake County: Bush 50.8%; Kerry 48.7%)
At the White House. . .
PRESIDENT BUSH
-- At the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas until Tuesday, August 26.
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