Sen. Begich Plans to Offer Amendment to Health Care Bill to Eliminate Ad Deduction

We have learned from several lobbying sources that Senator Mark Begich (D-AK) plans to offer his legislation (S. 2842) which would deny the deduction for direct-to-consumer advertising expenses as an amendment to the health care bill. 

We need your immediate assistance in helping to defeat this proposal.

While the current target is the pharmaceutical industry, this proposal raises very serious threats for the deductibility of marketing costs for all other products and services. Coupled with recent legislation concerning the deductibility for certain categories of food advertising, it is clear that no industry's ad deduction is safe. 

We need your help in contacting Senators and convincing them that this amendment is a bad idea. It is critical that you make these contacts immediately as this has the potential to move quickly. You can find some talking points to use in your contacts here and a list of Senate contacts here. 

We have also sent a letter up to the entire Senate.

If you have any questions about this matter, please contact Dan Jaffe (djaffe@ana.net) in ANA's Washington, D.C. office at 202.296.1883. Please let us know of any feedback you get from these contacts.