The spots are the work of a group called Citizens for Better Medicare, which describes itself as a “grass-roots” coalition fighting for better drug coverage. You might remember its popular TV campaign last fall featuring “Flo,” an elderly woman at a bowling alley who complained about a proposed government-run prescription-drug plan. “I don’t want big government in my medicine cabinet,” she said with a scowl.
The ads hit their mark, generating thousands of angry letters and calls to Capitol Hill. But what they didn’t mention is that Citizens for Better Medicare is funded almost entirely by the pharmaceutical industry, which has long battled White House and congressional efforts to force cuts in prescription-drug prices. Dan Zielinski, the group’s spokesman, admits that the drug industry has paid for “almost all” of the group’s television ads–for which it has spent an estimated $65 million–though he insists the organization now has some 300,000 grass-roots members.
The group’s tactics are hardly new. Washington operatives learned a long time ago that the public is more receptive to big-dollar corporate lobbying when people don’t know who’s footing the bill. These days, most industries have a friendly-sounding front group to push its agenda in the Capitol and on the airwaves.
But drugmakers have been especially effective at making their efforts to block drug-price controls and government prescription plans seem like a folksy, homespun movement. Funded by pharmaceutical dollars, Citizens for Better Medicare hired Alex Castellanos, the aggressive Republican media consultant (and the man behind last week’s controversial rats ad fiasco) to produce its television spots. It also funded Callyourgrandma.com, a Web site that urged young people to phone their elders and persuade them to lobby Congress against Clinton’s Medicare plan. At first, the site offered free phone cards to people who logged on. Now, the site advises twentysomethings to make the call “on your own dime.”
The group hasn’t shied away from picking fights with members of Congress who cross them. When Rep. Bill Luther, a Minnesota Democrat, released a report last December claiming drug prices in his state were 90 percent higher than in Canada or Mexico, Citizens for Better Medicare swamped the airwaves with TV ads attacking him for “playing politics” with the drug issue and urging voters to call his office. Three other Democratic congressmen were targeted with similar ads. The group is now running ads in 18 battleground districts, praising members of Congress who have “voted to strengthen and improve health care for seniors”–while helping the pharmaceutical industry’s bottom line.
