Politico reports that the Obama administration’s pro-Obamacare Andy Griffith TV ad cost taxpayers $3.66 million, according to records obtained from the Department of Health and Human Services. Actually, there were at least three such ads (here, here, and here), so it’s not clear whether this was the cost for one, or for the whole batch. In this ad, Griffith says, “That new health care law sure sounds good for all of us on Medicare!”
The Obama administration is apparently still in post-production on ads that cite the Congressional Budget Office’s projections that, during Obamacare’s real first decade (2014 to 2023), nearly $1 trillion would be siphoned out of Medicare and spent on Obamacare. The administration must also be putting the finishing touches on ads citing its own Medicare chief actuary’s findings, which say that Obamacare would cause reimbursement rates to Medicare providers to drop below even the notoriously low reimbursement rates paid to Medicaid providers, thereby jeopardizing seniors’ access to care. Here is that point in the chief actuary’s own words:
If the Obama administration is going to run ads with the American people’s money, wouldn’t it be great if it ran one with Andy Griffith saying, Within ten years, Obamacare will run 15 percent of hospitals out of the Medicare business?
