REFORM: Harry and Louise Return -- Older and So Much Wiser

Harry and Louise are back. Older and ever so much wiser.

The infamous Harry and Louise ads were created by the insurance industry in the early 1990s and widely credited with helping kill President Clinton's health care plan.

Now Harry and Louise are back, urging the next president—whoever that turns out to be—to finally fix U.S. health care.

Lots of things have changed since 1992-94. (The other day, after reading an old Ad Age story online too quickly, I wrote that Harry and Louise had gotten married in real life -- actually Louise married the creator of the ad, not the actor). They have a website. www.HarryandLouisereturn.com. And naturally they are on YouTube:

In the 90s, the Harry and Louise kitchen table imagery evoked all sorts of scary consequences of health reform. In 2008, Harry and Louise evoke all sorts of scary consequences of NOT doing health care reform. "It wasn't acting," the real Louise says about her current role. "This is not an abstract issue for either one of us." They know too many people, they say, who are uninsured or underinsured, who are having trouble with the rising costs of health care.

In the 90s, Harry and Louise were financed by the insurers. Now they represent a broad coalition of organizations—the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Hospital Association, the Catholic Health Association, Families USA, and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). The multimillion-dollar ad buy means that the couple will be seen quite a bit from this weekend through both party conventions early next month. The goal, says Families' director Ron Pollack, is to secure health reform's place at the top of the next president's agenda, before all sorts of competing issues distract the nation's attention or chip away at the new president's political capital.

Harry and Louise aren't advocating one specific plan, or one specific party, not now at least. Their message is to get everyone together and solve the problem: "Bring everyone to the table and make it happen."