Andy's New Role Medicare calls on actor Griffith to promote health-care law to seniors

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 31, 2010

WASHINGTON

Actor Andy Griffith has a new role: pitching President Obama's health-care law to seniors in a cable-television ad paid for by Medicare.

The TV star -- a native of Mount Airy, N.C., whose role as the sheriff of Mayberry made him an enduring symbol of small-town American values -- tells seniors that "good things are coming" under the health-care overhaul, including free preventive checkups and lower-cost prescriptions for Medicare recipients.

Polls show that seniors are more skeptical about the health-care law than are younger people because Medicare cuts provide much of the financing to expand coverage for the uninsured. That could be a problem for Democrats in the fall congressional elections, because seniors vote in large numbers.

Medicare says that the national ad is not political but is part of its outreach to educate seniors about new benefits available next year.

The ad is scheduled to run on channels that seniors tend to watch -- such as the Weather Channel, CNN, Hallmark and Lifetime -- at an initial cost of $700,000.

Not even Griffith, 84, could keep the ad from being pulled into the partisan politics of health care.

Said the Senate minority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.: "It's going to take more than slick taxpayer-funded ads to convince skeptical seniors that cutting a half-trillion dollars from Medicare is good for them."

But presidential adviser Stephanie Cutter said that the law strengthens Medicare by reducing wasteful spending.

"Seniors were the target of a major misinformation campaign," Cutter wrote on the White House blog, saying that the ads will help correct the record.