Ad Blitz Aims to Shift Views of Obamacare

Less than two weeks before open enrollment begins for the new health-insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's health-care law, the advertising blitz is heating up. 

Americans for Prosperity, a conservative group, began airing a $3 million anti-health-law ad campaign this week in six states, featuring a cancer survivor who worries the new law will interfere in the medical system. The Obama administration's multimillion-dollar national ad campaign is expected to start next month.

Both sides are trying to shape perceptions. A majority of Americans say they don't understand the law. Meanwhile, it has taken center stage in continued political bickering over the federal budget and the national debt ceiling. 

Political groups have spent roughly $500 million since the law passed in March 2010 either denouncing or defending the new law, according to Kantar Media, an ad-tracking unit of WPP PLC. A majority of that spending was on ads opposing the law. The ads also have mostly been airing in political swing states like Ohio and Virginia. Supporters of the law have been focusing their efforts on states like California and Texas, which have a large population of young, uninsured people.

The ads opposing the bill appear to be more about pressuring lawmakers and influencing voters who already have health insurance than persuading people to avoid the new health exchanges, where people can sign up for 2014 coverage starting Oct. 1.

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Americans for Prosperity has spent roughly $15 million over the past year on broadcast and cable-television ads. The latest features "Tricia," a cancer survivor who worries that the new health law will prevent other cancer patients from r the care that saved her life. It began airing in Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia on Thursday. 

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