The US healthcare establishment has launched a series of television attack adverts using tragic stories from Britain's National Health Service to contest Barack Obama's plans to contain the escalating cost of treatment and make it more accessible to the poor.

In the broadcasts, by Conservatives for Patients' Rights (CPR), Britons complain about waiting times, restrictions to operations and access to life-saving drugs on the NHS. A top British cancer specialist, Dr Karol Sikora, dean of the University of Buckingham's medical school and former chief of the World Health Organisation's cancer programme, also appears, warning that a state-run system strips patients of control over their healthcare. "They lose control over their own destiny in the health system," he says in the advert.

Supporters of reform have accused CPR of conducting a scaremongering campaign on behalf of the medical establishment similar to one that sank the last attempt at reform by the Clinton administration 16 years ago.

The latest campaign is being co-ordinated by the same public relations firm that masterminded the "Swift boat" attacks by President Bush's campaign against John Kerry in the 2004 election.

CPR says that Obama's plans to control costs, while widening access to care for some 45m people without health insurance, means that the US will introduce rationing of treatment and drug supplies which is similar to that overseen by the UK's National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (Nice).

The campaign group describes Britons as "trapped" by the NHS, with medical decisions made by bureaucrats, not doctors. "As our nation goes forward in its own healthcare reform debate, the failures of the British system should have Americans asking some very important questions, such as: who should make medical decisions – me and my doctor or a government board?" CPR asks.

The adverts feature Katie Brickell, who had terminal cervical cancer diagnosed at the age of 23 after she was refused a routine smear test on three occasions because she was deemed too young. The campaign group says the ruling was made by "the UK's national government rationing board that controls what treatments patients may receive".

Brickell says: "I fear the National Health Service has let me down because if I'd had a smear test when I asked for one originally I wouldn't have gone through everything I've been through now. And I feel that them raising the age limit has pretty much signed my death warrant."

Also appearing is Kate Spall, whose mother died from a rare form of kidney cancer because the cost of the treatment was too high. "If you have cancer in the UK today, you're going to die quicker than in any other country in Europe," she says in the advert.

Sikora, who appears in more than one advert, said he did not know that he would be part of the campaign.

"They came and saw me in my office about a month ago and I gather I'm appearing in some advert. They didn't tell me that would happen," he said. "I've seen it now. It didn't look too bad. It was reasonable."

But Sikora, who has worked in the US, says that he agrees with Obama that the two main problems with the American system are the large number of people without health insurance and the high cost of medical treatment, which is "driven by business-minded doctors".

Richard Kirsch, campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, backs Obama's intention to reform the system.

"There's a tremendous attempt to scare people away from healthcare reform by those who make a lot of money out of the healthcare system," he said. He added that he believes the ads will not reverse a growing public sentiment for such reform.

CPR is headed by the former chief executive of a health group who was at the forefront of one of the country's biggest healthcare fraud scandals. Rick Scott was forced out as CEO and chairman of a healthcare company, Columbia/HCA, in 1997 after the government accused it of a massive fraud through overbilling.

Scott walked away with millions of dollars in severance pay, but the company was forced to pay $1.7bn in compensation to the government, fines, interest and other payments to avoid prosecution and settle with claimants. Scott has responded to the criticism by saying: "I was never charged with any wrongdoing."