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Fresh off of last week’s State of the Union address, a liberal group is launching a $5 million ad campaign aimed at boosting nine Democratic congressional incumbents by connecting them to legislation aimed at lowering drug prices.
The group, Protect Our Care, will be running television, streaming and digital ads that applaud the lawmakers for measures passed by the Democratic-majority Congress in 2021 to cap insulin costs for Medicare recipients and to allow Medicare to negotiate some prescription drug prices.
The campaign starts Monday and will last a few months, the group told NBC News, including in-person organizing events on top of the advertising push.
“The best way to make sure Americans know about how their members of Congress lowered health care and prescription drug costs is to reach people where they are,” Protect Our Care chair Leslie Dach said in a statement.
“We are telling the American people how the Inflation Reduction Act is bringing down costs for working families and giving people economic relief and a little more breathing room. We urge these members of Congress to continue to lead the fight for reforms like the Lowering Drug Costs for American Families Act so more families can afford their medications.”
The ads come as Democrats mobilize for another election cycle in which they believe they can lean on the issue of health care to help them convince voters to back them. The Protect Our Care campaign comes amid a new flurry of Democratic spending: President Joe Biden’s campaign launched a $30 million ad campaign of its own after the State of the Union to boost the president ahead of his re-election, and he and his administration plans to travel the country this month.
Biden touts measures to lower prescription drug and insulin prices in his opening ad. The new Protect Our Care spots go into the same subject, pointing to portions of the Democrats’ 2021 Inflation Reduction Act that caps the price of insulin for Medicare recipients and allows the federal government to negotiate some drug prices.
They feature a nurse celebrating the measures on drug prices, lamenting how her patients had been resorting to skipping medication in order to keep costs down.
“This will help so many of my patients afford the medicines they need,” the nurse says in the spot. The ad goes on to call on Congress to pass new legislation aimed at providing additional health care savings for patients.
The new ads start airing Monday in the home districts of Democratic Reps. Yadira Caraveo of Colorado, Hillary Scholten of Michigan, Susan Wild of Pennsylvania, Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania, Susie Lee of Nevada, Steven Horford of Nevada, Pat Ryan of New York and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico.
Almost all of the members backed by the ad buy face potentially competitive general election fights this fall, when partisan control of the the House of Representatives will be up for grabs, especially considering that Republicans have a narrow majority in the body. Democrats could flip the House with a net gain of four seats in the fall, but Republicans are also pushing for gains to pad their majority.
Protect Our Care launched during the Trump administration, ahead of a 2018 midterms, when Democrats performed well amid a deep focus on the issue of health care. It’s a non-profit, which is why the ad touts legislation instead of an explicitly political message.
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