AARP to work with Hollywood to include health care issues in viewing

AARP's Divided We Fail campaign will work with more than 500 Hollywood writers and producers to include messages about health care in the story lines of popular television shows and movies, the groups planned to announce Wednesday, USA Today reports.

The Divided We Fail campaign, which was launched in April 2007 to find a bipartisan way to make health care affordable, will work with the Hollywood Radio & Television Society, the Entertainment Industry Foundation and the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Campaign members plan to produce TV shows and movies that talk about health care issues in an accurate way; push health care with political leaders; and set an example by examining in-house health insurance plans.

AARP's Executive Vice President of Social Impact Nancy LeaMond said, "We started thinking what was really important was to reach out through popular culture. There's nothing more effective." Jeffrey Katzenberg, chair of MPTF and CEO of DreamWorks Animation SKG, said Hollywood filmmakers are going to be the ones to make affordable health care happen because "[t]hey know how to entertain and enlighten at the same time." Neal Baer, a pediatrician and producer of "Law & Order: SVU," said, "Television, like it or not, teaches people," adding, "Writers are speaking to millions of people. Any forum that brings these issues to the forefront is both welcome and needed" (Haupt, USA Today, 5/28).