Andy Griffith: You'll like Washington's health care reform

Andy Griffith TV ad is targeted at seniors skeptical about the cuts that health care reform made to Medicare.

This undated handout video image provided by Medicare.gov shows actor Andy Griffith in a new role: pitching President Obama's health care reform to seniors, in a cable television ad paid for by Medicare. (Medicare.gov/AP)

(By Laurent Belsie, The Christian Science Monitor) - Does the money spent on political issue ads really work?

Sometimes.

Sixteen years ago, a fictional couple called Harry and Louise bashed the Clinton health care plan so memorably in TV ads that they were credited with helping to bring down health care reform.

Now, Medicare has recruited actor Andy Griffith in hopes that he can do just the opposite: talk it up. "With the new health care law, more good things are coming," says the former TV star of "The Andy Griffith Show" and "Matlock." " I think you're going to like it."

The Harry and Louise ads, backed by the health-insurance industry, reflected the Reagan-inspired concern about big government and political interference. "If we let the government choose, we lose," ran the tag line of one ad.

Mr. Griffith, by contrast, harks back to the Great Society-era of 1965. "A lot of good things came out that year," he says in the ad, "like Medicare."