One Group’s Multi-Million Dollar Quest to Repeal ‘Obamacare’
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(WASHINGTON) — The powerful and well-funded conservative group Americans for Prosperity took to the airwaves again this week, launching its biggest television advertising blitz yet against the Affordable Care Act.
The Koch brothers-fueled Americans for Prosperity released a new 60-second ad on Thursday that includes a Florida woman named Tricia who tells her story of surviving cancer and shares her fears about Obamacare.
“The changes in our health care system are a big concern to me,” Tricia says in the ad. “Obamacare is dangerous. It can’t be implemented. Your well-being judged by a bureaucrat in D.C. is devastating.”
The group is putting strong financial muscle behind the effort — $3 million, according to a source familiar with the buy. The ad will run in six states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia) between now and early October when the Healthcare Insurance Marketplace is set to launch nationwide.
“AFP will continue to lead the charge on the grassroots level in exposing the negative consequence of Obama’s health care law,” a spokesperson for the group told ABC News. “Throughout the country, AFP state chapters have held an average of 75 events a month focused on the health care law.”
Over the past few months, Americans for Prosperity has spent millions on the television and radio airwaves, online and in print on anti-Obamacare messages. And according to an analysis by a media tracking group published in USA Today Thursday, “Between July 1 and Sept. 16, Americans for Prosperity led all advertising, running more than 3,200 spots to slam the law, according to a tally of advertising by Kantar Media. That’s four times the number of ads placed in the same period by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the government agency charged with implementing the law, Kantar’s estimates show.”
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