Harry and Louise Return, Switching Sides

Harry and Louise are coming back to television screens across the country. This time, they're in favor of a health care overhaul.

TV ads featuring the two played a big role in derailing President Bill Clinton's effort to revamp the medical system in the early 1990s. Back then, actors Louise Caire Clark and Harry Johnson played a middle-class couple worrying about the changes.

Now, they will appear in a $4 million TV campaign supporting a reshaping of health care. The ads begin this weekend and will run at least three weeks on national cable and network news shows.

The ads are being sponsored by Families USA, which champions affordable health care for families, and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

In the commercial, the actors discuss a need for affordable health coverage that people can keep if they change or lose their jobs. They don't mention some of the issues dividing lawmakers, such as whether there should be optional government-run insurance or requirements that employers cover their workers, or how to pay for it.

"It sounds simple enough," Harry tells Louise as they sit at a kitchen table, just as they did in their ads in 1993 and 1994.

"A little more cooperation, a lttle less politics and we can get the job done this time," Louise says.