US advertising boom from health lobbies

In a development that has bucked the trend of the general economic downturn in the USA, one area of advertising is holding up with advocacy  groups supporting or opposing President Obama's health care reforms  (Marketletters passim). One group favoring government-funded health  insurance, Health Care for America Now, has paid for advertising spots  on television channels in Maine, where two centrist Republican Senators,  Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, are urged to go along with Democrats in  a move that would virtually guarantee a bill's passage through the  legislature.

On the opposite side of the debate, Americans for Prosperity Foundation  has targeted eight US states with an advertisement featuring a Canadian  woman who describes her unpleasant experiences with Health Canada which  led to her paying for treatment in the USA. The New York Times warns its  readers that similar campaigns "helped sink President [Bill] Clinton's  plan for universal coverage 15 years ago."