AMA ads target healthcare reform

The nation’s most prominent physician organization is widening the scope of an ongoing campaign to influence the political debate on healthcare reform during this year’s presidential contest.

The American Medical Association (AMA) announced Tuesday that its multimillion-dollar advertising and grassroots-outreach campaign focused on the problems of the uninsured was going nationwide.

{mosads}Televisions ads began appearing on cable networks this week with complementary print advertisements running in U.S. News & World Report. As the general election draws nearer, the AMA will expand the print component to other national magazines, as well as increase its Internet presence via MySpace and Facebook, the two most popular social-networking websites.

In 2007, the AMA’s “Voice for the Uninsured” campaign targeted the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area along with three early-primary election states: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The AMA has not commented on any of the presidential candidates’ healthcare reform proposals and is not expected to do so. The organization does not endorse presidential candidates and, in contrast to its active campaign giving to congressional candidates, does not distribute money to presidential hopefuls.

Nevertheless, the AMA has strong positions on healthcare reform and opposed key elements of the proposal promulgated by presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) when she was first lady in the mid-1990s.

The AMA also has its own plan to reduce the number of people without health insurance. The plan does not mirror those offered by any of the current crop of presidential hopefuls but contains features included in some candidates’ plans.