Pity This Harry and Louise: No Insurance! : Health care: The Democrats give effective TV ad characters a different spin. This time they are advocates for universal coverage.

WASHINGTON — The health care debate, already more than a little surreal, took another step toward the twilight zone Thursday as two of television’s most prominent fictional characters lost their health insurance, courtesy of the Democratic National Committee.

The characters are named Harry and Louise, the same as the couple made famous by the insurance industry through a highly successful series of advertisements attacking Clinton’s health plan. This time, they return to the small screen arguing the other side of the debate.

The insurance industry used their Harry and Louise ads to raise doubts about the workability of Clinton’s plan. The new ad, produced for the Democrats by Clinton’s friend Harry Thomason, the Los Angeles-based television producer, is designed to provide “a reality check and maybe a little humor” for the health debate, Democratic Chairman David Wilhelm said at a press conference.

In the ad, two actors who resemble the Harry and Louise from the insurance industry ads are in bed--Harry in a full body cast, Louise with her leg elevated and her arm in a sling. Harry, it appears, has lost his job and with it, his health insurance.

“You said universal health care was too complicated,” Louise says, a nagging tone in her voice, and then shoves Harry. “You said, you’d never lose your job so we’d always be covered. You said, what would we do when the government runs out of money?

“Well, who’s out of money now, Harry!”

The ad, which the DNC has started broadcasting in New York and Washington, ends with an announcer picking up the tag line from the original Harry and Louise advertisements, but adding a pro-Administration twist. “There is a better way,” the announcer says. “Tell Congress you want what they already have. The security of affordable, universal health care.”

The American Assn. of Retired Persons, one of Washington’s most powerful lobbying groups on health issues, also unveiled an ad campaign Thursday.

The $800,000 effort got under way this week in 53 cities in 29 states, featuring two television spots and a radio ad urging the public to demand congressional enactment of health care reform.

Horace Deets, AARP’s executive director, also sent a letter this week to each member of Congress, warning that failure to overhaul the health care system will cause the public to become “more impatient and cynical with our institutions of government.”

Most elderly groups already are on record in support of President Clinton’s reform agenda. AARP has not endorsed it, although the organization supports Clinton’s proposed employer mandate as the chief financing mechanism to achieve universal coverage.