WASHINGTON — Get used to seeing television ads aimed at turning up the health-care heat on Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.
An ad already running is the work of two groups that favor creating a new public health insurance option and want Nelson to get on board.
The ad features Ralston restaurant owner Mike Snider saying he’s just learned his health insurance rates are going up 42 percent this year. Snider says that he might have to simply cancel his family’s policy.
Snider then tells viewers that the public option would help by forcing private insurers to lower rates to compete and describes Nelson as “leading the charge to delay health reform.”
Nelson spokesman Jake Thompson responded by saying such “scare tactics” would backfire.
“If this is an indication of the politics going into August, then health care reform may be dead by the end of August,” he said.
Mary Rickles, a spokeswoman for one of the groups behind the ad, Democracy For America, said the ads seem to be accomplishing their objective by getting Nelson’s attention.
Still, Nelson continues to raise his concerns that some of the current proposals could destabilize the insurance that most Americans already have.
“Right now there are two plans out, one in the House and one in the Senate, that I can’t support — maybe parts of them, but not in their entirety,” Nelson told reporters Wednesday.
Rickles said the ads will continue to air throughout August.
Nelson ultimately could be a swing vote on health care, and he has urged Senate leaders not to rush health care legislation.
The issue is bogged down in the Senate because a bipartisan negotiating group of Finance Committee members has failed to produce a deal.
Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns, a Republican who has criticized the Democrats’ health care proposals, this week called the ads targeting Nelson “simply unacceptable.”
“I am appalled by the misleading tactics being used in Nebraska to bully Sen. Nelson into jumping on a radical bandwagon,” Johanns said.
Nelson has personally called Snider, the Ralston man featured in the ad.
“I wanted to get a copy of the premium increase notice so I could check on it to find out why his rates were going up at this level,” said Nelson, citing his own experience in the insurance business. Previously, Nelson has served as an insurance company attorney, insurance executive and state insurance director.
Thompson said late Wednesday that Nelson is still waiting on paperwork from Snider.
Contact the writer:
202-662-7270, joe.morton@owh.com
