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In response to Medicare legislation that stalled in the Senate (subscription) last week, two major health care organizations -- the American Medical Association and America's Health Insurance Plans -- are running dueling ads through the Fourth of July weekend.

The bill, H.R. 6331, would have blocked a 10.6 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursements to doctors. The cuts, which were supposed to go into effect Tuesday, have been put on a temporary hold in order to give Congress another chance at blocking the pay cuts when it returns from recess next week.

The AMA's ad buy, launched Tuesday, includes TV and radio ads appearing in six states. Designed to bolster support for the measure, the ad campaign targets 10 Republican senators (seven facing re-election) who voted against it, including New Hampshire's John Sununu (subscription).

The ads open with an announcer noting that, over the Independence Day holiday, "there's no celebrating for the millions of Medicare patients -- seniors, the disabled and military families -- who will lose their access to health care. A group of U.S. senators voted to protect the powerful insurance companies' huge profits at the expense of Medicare patients' access to doctors and their services."

On the other side of the issue is America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents insurers. AHIP is unhappy with a portion of the bill that would cut subsidies to the privately administered Medicare Advantage plans. In "Again" (subscription), an announcer says that "millions of seniors could be pushed out of their Medicare Advantage plans" if the bill passes "while millions more will have to pay higher out-of-pocket costs for health care and lose important benefits they depend on." AHIP's ads, released today nationwide, don't target any specific lawmaker, but feature a more general call to action: "Tell Congress: Stop cuts to Medicare Advantage."

The AMA downplayed the program's positive influence. In an e-mail, organization president Nancy Nielsen said reports by the Government Accountability Office show that "overpayments to Medicare Advantage plans threaten the long-term health of the Medicare program. In contrast, drastic cuts to Medicare physician services threaten seniors' access to health care."

AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach is hopeful lawmakers can come to a compromise solution when they return to Washington next week. "We have heard discussions about Congress possibly moving forward with a clean bill that fixes the impending physician payment cut without cutting Medicare Advantage," he said. "That would be a better approach rather than cutting a program that more than 10 million seniors rely on."