The New Yolk Times
NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1994

[Image] Photo by David Scull of theThe New York Times:
Picture from a distance of a line of people in wheelchairs and people walking across a plaza in front of the Lincoln Memorial.The picture is from below, two steps are in the foreground and the Memorial stands in the distance against the sky.
[Image caption] Disabled demonstrators marched past the Lincoln Memorial in Washington yesterday to urge a health care plan that provides universal coverage. David Scull/ The New York Times

By ROBIN TONER
Special to The New York Times
WASHINGTON, May 2 — Supporters of a Canadian-style system of government-financed health insurance announced a new advertising campaign today, hoping to build on their success in a recent grass-roots campaign on behalf of the idea in California.

The new campaign pits the comedy team of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara against the Health Insurance Association of America's "Harry and Louise," two aging yuppies fretting about the future of health care in a series of television advertisements.

Appropriating the tag line of the insurance industry's spots, Ms. Meara declares in one commercial: "Harry and Louise, there is a better way."

The advertising campaign is small compared with the industry's: just $1 million, only a fourth of which has been raised, as against the more than $10 million spent by the insurance association. But the advocates of a Canadian-style system, in which the government pays nearly all medical bills, have already demonstrated substantial support at the grass roots.

[Subheading] Million Sign California Petition
Last week a coalition of consumer, labor and doctors' groups in California submitted more than one million signatures to put a measure on the ballot this fall that would create a government-financed health care system paid for by taxes. Officials must still verify the signatures before the measure goes on the state ballot, but organizers said the number was well above the threshold required.

Around the country, advocates of a Canadian-style system hope the California experience helps them in their struggle to demonstrate the political viability of their plan. They are convinced that their principal problem is not the substantive merits of a national health insurance system, but the perception in the White House and on Capitol Hill, fed by the industry groups, that it is simply too radical for the American people.

The House is considered the strong-est baSe of single-payer support, but even there the Canadian-style bill has fewer than 100 sponsors, well under the 218 necessary for passage. "The giant insurance companies have spent millions in advertising, campaign contributions and lobbying to push sii,gle payer off the table," said Sara Nichols, a staff lawyer for Public Citizen's Congress Watch. "But we're still here."

[Subheading] Lobbying With the Disabled
The new commercials, which will first be broadcast in Washington, are an effort to put some pressure on Congress as its committees begin moving toward a vote. The campaign's organizers included Public Citizen, Neighbor to Neighbor and Single Payer Across the Nation, or SPAN.

In other developments on health care, President Clinton met today with advocates for people with disabilities, arguing that his health care plan would "empower" the disabled by providing an array of new assistance to help them work and live at home.

"Does it cost more in the short run?" he asked. "Yes, it costs some extra money. But if you look at the population trends in this country, if you look at the people with disabilities who are surviving and having lives that are meaningful, if you look at the fastest-growing group of Americans being people over 65, and within that group, the fastest-growing being people over 80, this is something we have to face as a people."

[Subheading] A grass-roots campaign that says, 'Yes, there is a better way.'
"We will either do it now in a rational way, or we will be dragged kicking and screaming into it piece-meal, Band-Aid like, over the next 10 years," the President said. "But make no mistake about it: we cannot run away from this because we can-not afford either to have everybody in the world forced into a nursing home or living in abject neglect."

Meanwhile, Hillary Rodham Clinton took her health care pitch to a local Safeway supermarket, which is putting a new message on its grocery bags: "Safeway Supports Affordable Health Care for All Americans."

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الأربعاء 7 أغسطس 2019

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• Washington DC, Spring 1994 - A Bridge to Freedom

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