Vice President Dick Cheney would probably be dead if he received the health care an average American gets, at least that’s according to a new newspaper advertisement by a nurses’ group critical of the health care plans by the Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls. 
 
Cheney has had four heart attacks, has a implanted defibrillator to shock his heart if it beats irregularly and experienced other health scares including a blood clot in his leg and experiencing shortness of breath. 

The ad reads: 

Unlike the average American, the president, vice president and members of Congress all enjoy government-financed health care with few restrictions or prohibitive fees. They are never turned away for pre-existing conditions or denied care for what an insurance company labels “experimental treatments.” The rest of us deserve no less.
 
The advertisement, which will run in newspapers in the early voting state of Iowa on Monday, is sponsored by the California Nurses Association and National Nurses Organizing Committee which are taking aim at the Democratic presidential hopefuls for their plans to cover 47 million uninsured Americans.
 
“All the current Democratic proposals keep the insurance companies at the apex of power and deny Americans the chance for guaranteed health care, and the Republican proposals are far worse,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of CNA/NNOC and a vice-president of the union powerhouse AFL-CIO.
 
The public relations firm representing the nurses, Fenton Communications, was also the same group that worked with MoveOn.org which ran a blistering newspaper advertisement criticizing the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

“Something this outrageous does not warrant a response,” said Cheney spokeswoman Megan Mitchell. 

The health care argument contrasts with that of Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani who said earlier this fall he would probably would not have survived his fight with prostate cancer if he had been in Britain, citing its government-run health care system. He was later criticized for exaggerrating the U.K. death rate.

– Photo credit: Jonathan Ernst