Boehner: Obama isn’t a doctor, but he’s playing one on TV

President Obama may not be a doctor, but he’s trying to play one on TV, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) jabbed Monday at the president’s healthcare plans in a new web ad.

The top GOP member of the House revived a classic 1980s television commercial for Vicks cough syrup in which Peter Bergman, who played a physician on the soap opera “The Young and the Restless,” pitched the medicine with the line, “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on TV.”

The video splices Bergman’s line with some lines from Obama talking about treatments in the context of healthcare reform.

The spot marks what may be considered the first salvo in a so-called “Battle for August,” in which Republicans and Democrats, along with the Obama administration, will fight out the details of healthcare reform in their home states in districts before returning to Washington in September. The House and Senate will both have to then pass preliminary reform bills in the fall.

“Like the old joke goes, President Obama isn’t a doctor, but he plays one on TV — giving Americans a discomforting glimpse of life under ObamaCare, with government leaders and bureaucrats dispensing medical opinions that are better left to doctors, medical professionals, and patients,” Boehner said in a statement.

“This is a lighthearted video, but it underscores a serious point that Congressional Democrats are going to hear throughout August as they travel outside of Washington: Americans want lower health care costs — not a trillion-dollar government takeover of health care that increases costs and lets Washington bureaucrats make decisions that should be made by doctors and patients,” the Ohio Republican added.

Update, 11:16 a.m.: DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan responds:

John Boehner isn’t an insurance company executive, but he sure plays one in the U.S. House of Representatives. That’s the only explanation for admittedly working to ‘kill’ health insurance reform while premiums for the average American family are rising three times faster than their wages, while small businesses are choosing between offering coverage and creating jobs, and when controlling runaway health care costs is necessary to get the economy fully back on track. John Boehner and the Republicans that would follow him may not officially be insurance agents, but in working to ‘kill’ reform they are proving that they are certainly agents of the status quo.

Watch the video below: