December 2nd, 2009

Washington Post reports:

By Ben Pershing
As the Senate continues its debate over health-care legislation, a grass-roots conservative group is launching a $1 million ad campaign to persuade key senators to oppose the reform measure.

Keeping Small Business Healthy, a project run by the advocacy group Institute for Liberty, will begin airing ads Wednesday targeting five Senate Democrats in four relatively conservative states — Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Ben Nelson (Neb.), Kent Conrad (N.D.) and Byron Dorgan (N.D.). The ads mark the latest salvo in the record-breaking battle of the airwaves over health-care reform, in which groups on all sides of the debate have combined to spend more than $170 million, according to the Campaign Media Analysis Group.

Each ad features small-business owners from the specified state warning of the dire consequences if Democrats’ health-reform proposals become law. “Raising taxes and mandates on small business will kill Nebraska jobs,” says one such person in the ad targeting Nelson. The Nebraska ad also warns that “premiums will go up” and “your family might have to buy government forced insurance.”

Democrats would dispute the ad’s depiction of their reform plans. A Congressional Budget Office study of the Senate bill released Monday found that insurance premiums for most Americans would either stay the same or be lower if the Senate measure becomes law.