BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

I just heard for the first time the government-sponsored  commercial for Medicare starring Andy Griffith.  Remember him? Mayberry Sheriff Andy Taylor?

In the ad, Ole Andy harkens back 1965, when, he says, a lot of good things happened – like Medicare.   That’s not how I remember 1965, but I digress. 

Andy’s sitting in an easy chair petting a dog.  He says:  “This year, like always, we will have our guaranteed benefits and with the new law, more good things are coming, like free check ups, lower prescription costs and more ways to protect us and Medicare from fraud.”  That’s about it.  That’s the ad.

            Initial cost for this vignette: 700,000 of your tax dollars. 

Not only is the ad an egregious misuse of tax dollars, it is an injustice to and deception of American seniors, most of whom, according to the polls, don’t like Obamacare. 

            Stephanie Cutter, the assistant to the President for special projects, says the ad is not political but  “educational”. Is she real?  That’s educational?  What is educational about it?  It’s less than 50 words.

            Give Stephanie every benefit of the doubt and you still come to the same conclusion.  The intent of the ad isn’t education. It is politics, and partisan politics, at that. It is intended to make seniors feel good about Obamacare so they will support the Democratic members of Congress who cast a tough vote in favor of it.  Really, now. 

            The ad is showing up three months before an election in which President Obama’s health care law is and will be a critical, and perhaps decisive issue.  The potential impact on the elections is as transparent as a Thompson Creek window.  It insults the intelligence to claim otherwise, no matter what Ms Cutter declares. 

The ad contains no language, other than a reference to the Medicare.gov website that is remotely educational, informative, let alone factual or the least bit objective or balanced.   It is kind of entertaining, though.  It was good to see Andy again.

Second, the little dialogue in the ad is misleading at best and – sorry Andy–a flat lie at worst.  You need to go no further than the highly reputable FactCheck.org, which says about Andy’s claim that your benefits, as always, are guaranteed:  “The truth is, for millions of seniors, benefits won’t remain the same.”   Brooks Jackson, who runs Fact Check, is being very conservative in that assessment.  

Here’s what one of the ad’s critics, North Carolina Richard Burr, says about the new law.  “This law cuts more than a half a trillion dollars from Medicare beneficiaries in order to pay for the creation of new government programs.  This includes cuts to hospitals, Medicare Advantage, home health, nursing homes and hospice care.” Burr says it will affect the benefits of 14 million seniors.

            Medicare will never be what it is today, no matter how sincere Andy pretends to be.  When it comes to benefits, in some ways they may be better and benefit more people.  In some ways, however, they will be far worse.  But the real problem is that today, with the enactment of the new law, we know little more now than we did a year ago about whether Medicare will survive at all.  And for Andy and the White House and Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who paid for the ad, to perpetrate this fraud is shameful.

Third, there is a loud ring of hypocrisy in the ad.  Just recall the President’s righteous indignation expressed in his State of the Union over the Citizens United court case.  That decision  overturned prohibitions against the independent expenditures of corporations and unions in political campaigns.  But what’s this?  What’s worse than big unions and big corporations …. injecting themselves into local elections with hundreds of thousands of dollars? The government, that’s what’s worse.  The government using dollars to influence campaigns is worse and furthermore, more dangerous and more ominous for our freedom of speech.   

            I don’t ever recall a government ad campaign this political and this partisan.  It speaks to a very troubling trend in the Obama Administration’s behavioral pattern.  What is right and wrong doesn’t matter so much as the end justifying the means. There’s an arrogance in that we should all be wary of.

            Andy Griffith, of all celebrities–the government’s exploitation of the Sheriff of Mayberry.  Whose next? Opie, Aunt Bee and Barney Fife?  No wonder Americans are discouraged, disillusioned and distrustful of government.  Can you blame them?

Editors’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff.   He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.