American Cancer Society To Devote Entire 2008 Advertising Budget To Consequences Of Inadequate Health Coverage

The American Cancer Society this year plans to use its entire advertising budget of $15 million to campaign against inadequate health insurance coverage, the New York Times reports. The ad campaign is "unique, say experts in both philanthropy and advertising, in that disease-fighting charities traditionally limit their public appeals to narrower aspects of prevention or education," according to the Times.

The campaign is driven in part by recent research that has linked a lack of health coverage to delays in detecting malignancies, the Times reports. The group has a goal of reducing cancer death rates by 50% and incidence rates by 25% from 1990 to 2015, but at the current rate, the cancer society will fall short of its goal by about half. The ads are nonpartisan and avoid promoting specific health care reform plans, such as a single-payer system or mandatory insurance. Instead, they are "intended to intensify the political focus on an issue" that already is a major issue among presidential candidates and give the message that progress against chronic diseases would be slow until the U.S. health care system is fixed, the Times reports.

Greg Donaldson, the cancer society's vice president for corporate communications, said, "We very much see a moral imperative to raising the discussion, but we understand there's a need to be appropriate." Donaldson said the ads are intended to urge action on health reform by the next administration and to direct viewers to a Web site linked to the society's advocacy and lobbying division.

Cancer Society CEO John Seffrin said, "I believe, if we don't fix the health care system, that lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco," adding, "The ultimate control of cancer is as much a policy issue as it is a medical and scientific issue."

However, Valerie Robinson of the Jacksonville, Fla., Cancer Society chapter, said access to insurance is not the group's "fight." She said, "To me, it's throwing away money that we could have put into providing free mammograms or free PSA tests or free colonoscopies" (Sack, New York Times, 8/31).

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