AMA takes uninsured campaign nationwide

The Association is tripling its spending on the initiative, which will encourage people to vote in November with the issue of the uninsured in mind.

By Doug Trapp, AMNews staff. Feb. 4, 2008.

Washington -- The American Medical Association's campaign to raise awareness of the nation's 47 million uninsured and to help address the problem is going nationwide.

The three-phase initiative kicked off in August 2007 with $5 million in advertising in Washington, D.C., and in the early presidential primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. This year the campaign will spend about $15 million to spread the AMA's message across the country using print, television, radio and Internet ads; healthy lifestyle events; mobile billboards; and profiles on the popular social networking sites MySpace and Facebook.

The effort has two main goals, said AMA Board of Trustees member Samantha Rosman, MD, a pediatric resident in Boston. "The first is to put a human face on the issue of the uninsured," she said. "We're trying to get the message out that the uninsured is not just a statistic, but really individuals who are suffering as a result. The second is to then, with that information, motivate people to go to the voting booth with that in mind -- to demand from candidates from both parties they come up with not only a plan but a commitment to take action if elected."

The AMA has had a health system reform proposal for more than a decade, but it hasn't advanced legislatively, Dr. Rosman said. The Voice for the Uninsured campaign is an attempt this election year to change that.