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THE RETURN OF HARRY AND LOUISE.
Two middle aged adults. White. Dressed for office jobs, though probably not very high in the workplace hierarchy. They're sitting around the table, drinking coffee. They're looking at the paper. Or at a calculator. They're talking about President Clinton's health care reform. And they're befuddled, confused, scared. "There's got to be a better way," they sigh. "Congress can do better than that," they say.
The Harry and Louise ads -- a product of the insurance industry -- probably didn't kill Clinton's health reform, but they best channeled the sentiment that killed it: Fear. Fear of change that overwhelmed the fear of the status quo. Harry and Louise always spoke in favor of reform. It was just that Clinton's reform didn't seem right to them. And in that way, they spoke for the country. There's got to be a better way.
15 years later, they're back. Same actors. Similar set. But time has ground on. They're older. They know more people struggling with health costs. They hear of more businesses shuttering beneath the burden of medical spending:
This time, they're being funded by a group that -- publicly, at least -- supports reform. Some of the actors, like Families USA, are steadfast reformers, who desperately want progress. But some, like the National Federation of Independent Business, are questionable, if not forthrightly malign. In a year, they may well be moaning, and running ads, begging for a better way. Some are powerful organizations that have only recently been activated into a reformist posture, like the American Cancer Society, and their incentives are uncertain. Some, like the American Hospital Association, are powerful trade lobbies looking out for their own interests. In this coalition, which supports reforms without shape or name, you can see the seeds of possible failure. Again, Harry and Louise never opposed reform, only the specific plan that Clinton proposed, and that the insurance industry feared.
But watch the making of video:
When the actors who play Harry and Louise talk about why they signed on to remake the commercial, you can hear a familiar exhaustion. "The circumstances are much worse nowadays," says the actor who plays Harry. "Things are much more expensive than they were then." The camera pans to Louise. "This wasn't acting because this isn't an abstract issue for either one of us. Both of us know people who are having problems because they don't have adequate coverage, or coverage at all. And we both know more people now than 15 years ago." This statement, quiet and simple and tired, is worlds away from the press releases of NFIB or the AHA.
In 1994, the conceit was that Harry and Louise represented the silent majority of the middle class. Maybe, in 2008, they still do. Whether the support of Harry and Louise will guarantee the support of the people funding them, however, is an open question.
COMMENTS (18)
Paul Krugman is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.
February 1, 2008, 10:58 am
Obama does Harry and Louise, again
The Obama campaign sends out an ugly mailer. Sorry, but this is just destructive — like the Obama plan, the Clinton plan offers subsidies to lower-income families. And BO himself has conceded that he might have to penalize people who don’t buy insurance until they need care. So this is just poisoning the well for health care reform. The politics of hope, indeed.
Update: Ezra Klein adds a screenshot of the original Harry and Louise ad — they’ve obviously deliberately copied it. Just to remind everyone, Harry and Louise were the center of the vile smear campaign the insurance lobby waged against health care reform in 1993 — and this time a Democratic candidate is doing the smearing for them.
Ezra also points us to an Urban Institute study that shows that yes, mandates are essential. The key passage:
Voluntary measures would tend to enroll disproportionate numbers of individuals with higher cost health problems, creating high premiums and instability in the insurance pools in which they are enrolled.
I know that Obama supporters want to hear no evil, but this is really, really bad.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/obama-does-harry-and-louise-again/
Posted by: S Brennan | August 19, 2008 11:44 AM
Yes, hear no evil...from months ago that we all already heard about. Yes, those ads were terrible. And he should be ashmed about them. But do you have a point other than that?
Posted by: Josh R. | August 19, 2008 12:10 PM
Wow check out the hip backwards cap on Harry and Louise's neighbor. Ah, the early nineties.
Posted by: Drew | August 19, 2008 12:34 PM
Here no evil? You're quoting from a post that I wrote! You heard that evil because I told you about it. That said, Obama is not part of this coalition or the new ads. Stay on topic.
Posted by: Ezra | August 19, 2008 1:08 PM
"You're quoting from a post that I wrote!"
That's right Ezra, I didn't want your post on Harry and Louise to go down memory hole.
So talking about your previous post on Harry and Louise on your current Harry and Louise post is off topic?
Hmmm...curious..why?
Posted by: S Brennan | August 19, 2008 1:19 PM
You have to wonder how effective this ad will be. 15 years is a long time for political arcana and, probably, a very small percentage of people over age 45 will remember the Harry and Louise campaign at all.
Posted by: jonm | August 19, 2008 1:21 PM
from the ad: more people are falling through the cracks
Yep, just a few cracks in the mighty ediface of superior US healthcare. Nothing to require action, just some cracks we should all sit down and discuss together. No real plans, however, because that would mean we intend to do something. Can't we all just get along? Here's some crack filler to make things look good again.
Anybody who thinks that big corps, FIB and the health insurance industry are going to do anything more than fill cracks that won't cost them much is delusional. Fifteen years later, the denial and failure to accept the human cost of this disaster is still prevalent.
Socialism is the real danger to the US people, not profitmaking on human misery. [/bitter sarcasm].
How much further do we need to fall to get the third world status that will make business happy?
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | August 19, 2008 1:38 PM
Here's what I don't get...given the fact that the hospital industry is locked in a death struggle with the insurance industry...why don't they support the single-payer reforms that would seem to help them? No more huge bureaucracy fighting with insurers, no more invasive admissions and collections rigamarole, and the return to a focus on care.
One of the most encouraging conversations I've had in the fight for healthcare reform was with a hospital executive who "obviously" supported Medicare for All...but felt he couldn't quite publicly say so.
Maybe we need a National Coming-Out Day for single-payer supporters?
Posted by: California Nurses Shum | August 19, 2008 1:45 PM
If "Harry and Louise" had'nt have been soooo stupid in the 90's, and actually thought about a future that was further than their on selfish, conceited, myopic noses, then we'd all be better off. It's cute to be a "conservative" until the consequences of that silly ideology start to bite it's adherents in the ass.
Posted by: onlinesavant | August 19, 2008 2:19 PM
Gold Two: McCain's negatives, they've stopped!
Gold Five: [realizes why] Stabilize your deflectors... Watch for convention propaganda.
Gold Leader: They're coming in! Three marks at 2-10!
[Gold Two is slain by Darth McCain and his wingmen; Gold Leader starts to panic]
Gold Leader: It's no good, I can't maneuver!
Gold Five: Stay on topic.
Gold Leader: *We're too close!*
Gold Five: Stay on topic!
Gold Leader: [shouts] Loosen up!
[he too is picked off by McCain and Company; Gold Five tries to escape but is fatally winged]
Gold Five: Gold Five to Red leader, lost Tiree, lost Dutch.
Red Leader: I copy, Gold Leader.
Gold Five: It came from... [crashes]
Posted by: Gold Five Requiem | August 19, 2008 4:43 PM
Canada and England established their socialized medicine in the 50's when medical care was far less sophisticated and technical. Today, they cannot afford it as they struggle with costs necessitating rationing and decisions about who gets care. Another fatality from the system is that intelligent people are going into other professions because everything is managed including how much doctors can earn. How can we offer the advanced care we have and afford it? Is ending the war enough and how about the future? Is demonizing insurance and medical personnel going to get the job done?
Posted by: Lynn O'Connor | August 19, 2008 5:08 PM
Yay! It's the "Canadian health care is falling apart" meme!
I love that one. Got any evidence to back it up?
Posted by: Elegius | August 19, 2008 5:41 PM
Once more into the breach! I can make a guarantee that Canada and England will not fundamentally chamnge their health care system. I can guarantee you that if they did, there would be an uprising in those countries the likes of which we have'nt seen. Why is that? because for all the distortion and lies about universal health-care in those countries, and 34 other sane, industrialized countries (Except the good ol' U.S.of A) universal healthcare WORKS! You don't see any of those other countries ending what their doing and copying what we're doing. So what does that say? 36 other industrialized nations are stupid, and we're the smart ones? Yeah. The country that spends more on health care than any other country, even as a percentage of it's GDP, but can't cover anywhere near all it's people? The country that has HALF it's bankruptcy's due to medical bills? The country that has one of, no maybe, THE highest rate of infant mortality? Yeah. That's what these other, backward, countries are beginning to copy. You know, one of my old professors used to have a saying. She said: "Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining". Well Lyn O'connor. If anyone will be pissing around here, it will be the intelligent, rational posters wetting your backwards, tacky, ideology.
Posted by: onlinesavant | August 19, 2008 6:01 PM
Another fatality from the system is that intelligent people are going into other professions because everything is managed including how much doctors can earn.
Yes, that six-year medical degree in the UK, costing as much as a year in US medical school, is really deterring people from applying to those already oversubscribed courses.
Are you Nate's assistant?
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