At a time when Gov. David A. Paterson can ill afford more negative attention, the state’s most powerful health care interests are mounting a multimillion-dollar media campaign that excoriates the governor and his plans to cut funding for hospitals and other health care facilities.

In television commercials that will begin broadcasting statewide on Monday, nurses and patients take a personal swipe at the governor, imploring, “Why are you doing this?” At one point, a nurse says, “I can’t believe Governor Paterson is the one making this proposal.” Then a man, blind and in a wheelchair, asks the governor, who is legally blind, “Why are you doing this to me?”

The attacks on Mr. Paterson come as Republicans are ratcheting up their own objections to the governor’s budget proposal, taking advantage of what they consider an opening to criticize a governor weakened by the fallout over the way he selected a new United States senator.

In a further sign of trouble for the governor, members of his own party have become increasingly unhappy with him in the last week. Some Democrats have worried publicly that Mr. Paterson is not moving quickly and aggressively enough to counter criticism about his handling of the appointment of Kirsten E. Gillibrand to the Senate.

Mr. Paterson, who rearranged his schedule last week after canceling a trip to Davos, Switzerland, for an economic forum, spent much of the weekend traveling to previously unscheduled town meetings across upstate New York. He met with the public at community colleges in Johnstown on Friday and in Auburn on Saturday, where he defended his plans to close the $15 billion state budget deficit.

While legislative leaders and public employees’ unions have expressed concern over the cuts Mr. Paterson has proposed, no one has criticized the governor as harshly or as loudly as the health care interests do in their new campaign. The governor is calling for $3.5 billion less in funding increases for health care spending over the next 14 months.

The advertising blitz, which is being paid for by the 1199 S.E.I.U. United Healthcare Workers East and the Greater New York Hospital Association, will feature television commercials in all of the state’s major media markets — including New York, Syracuse and Buffalo — and in smaller markets like Utica, Watertown and Binghamton. The television spots will accompany radio commercials, newspaper advertisements, direct mail and phone banks that the campaign’s organizers hope will reach up to two million voters. The television and radio components alone, with their statewide reach, will cost at least $1 million per week.

A spokeswoman for the governor, Risa B. Heller, said that the governor’s budget calls for a reduction in the rate of health care spending growth — not a reduction in spending. And she questioned whether a media campaign was the most appropriate way for the groups to air their concerns. “The governor hopes that 1199 and G.N.Y.H.A. recognize that a television ad never helped solve a crisis and asks that they join him in his responsible approach to this year’s budget,” she said.

The advertising campaign, which organizers said would last for at least a month, is similar to efforts undertaken by the union and the hospital association in the past. Most recently, when Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed cutting health care funding as part of his budget in 2007, the health care groups took aim at him with commercials that questioned the wisdom of his budget cuts. Mr. Spitzer countered with his own ads that featured a nursery filled with crying infants and a narrator saying that “special interests” were merely complaining and standing in the way of budget reform.

(Source: NY Times)