American Cancer Society launches health reform ads

ATLANTA – The American Cancer Society this week will take its biggest step ever into the politics of health care reform, spending $15 million in advertising on behalf of Americans with too little health insurance or none at all.\nThe cancer society – the nation’s richest health charity, in both donations and volunteers – traditionally focuses its advertising on encouraging Americans to quit smoking or get a screening test.\nBut this year’s campaign will feature television commercials that portray the challenges of uninsured and underinsured cancer patients, accompanied by a call for people to do something about it.\nThe change comes after cancer society officials concluded that insurance-related problems have emerged as one of the one of the largest obstacles in their goal to cut cancer death rates by 50 percent and incidence rates by 25 percent from 1990 to 2015.\n“We’re not going to meet our goals if the health care system remains unfixed,” said John Seffrin, the cancer society’s chief executive.\nStarting Monday, three commercials on network and cable channels will run until Thanksgiving. Ads will be placed in magazines and on Web sites as well.\nThe cancer society is not endorsing any particular reform plan or candidate. Even so, it’s an unusually pointed campaign for the philanthropy, and for organizations like it.\nThe American Heart Association’s chief executive, M. Cass Wheeler, envied the group’s resources and applauded its new campaign.\n“Heart and stroke patients are going to benefit from the good this advertising campaign is going to do,” Wheeler said. His organization spends $10 million each year on advertising, and focuses it on exercise and other prevention measures for patients.\nDespite the fact that many cancer patients are 65 and older and are covered by the federal Medicare program, cancer society officials estimate that at least 55,000 of the 1.4 million people diagnosed with cancer each year have no health insurance.\nHundreds of thousands of others have coverage but end up financially distressed by uncovered bills, they say.\nLarge increases in insurance costs in this decade have caused employers and others to become more interested in systemwide reform, said Ken Thorpe, an Emory University health policy professor.\n“Many big businesses have come to the realization they can’t solve this problem on their own,” he said.\nAt the cancer society’s call center in Austin, Texas, a team of 14 operators have been assigned to take calls from people who are uninsured or underinsured. They form the core of a Health Insurance Assistance Service, which tries to connect people with coverage programs.\nIt was through the assistance service that the cancer society found the star of one of its new commercials – Raina Bass, 26, a legal assistant in central Missouri.\nShe survived ovarian cancer in her teens and became a wife and mother. But in 2005, she woke up with a swollen throat one summer morning that turned out to be thyroid cancer.\nBoth she and her husband had health insurance through their jobs, but it didn’t cover all her medical bills. Meanwhile, bill collection agencies were calling regularly.\n“I should be shouting and jumping that I beat cancer twice,” she said in an interview, but instead often found herself crying about debt and job constraints.\nBass was at a press conference Monday in Washington when the cancer society campaign was unveiled.\n“I am so glad I’ve been given the opportunity to finally speak out about this,” she said.