NYT: Business Cool Toward McCain’s Health Coverage Plan

[Pirate Smile]

American business, typically a reliable Republican cheerleader, is decidedly lukewarm about Senator John McCain’s proposal to overhaul the health care system by revamping the tax treatment of health benefits, officials with leading trade groups say.

The officials, with organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable and the National Federation of Independent Business, predicted in recent interviews that the McCain plan, which eliminates the exclusion of health benefits from income taxes, would accelerate the erosion of employer-sponsored health insurance and do little to reduce the number of uninsured from 45 million.

That is largely the argument made in recent days by Mr. McCain’s opponent, Senator Barack Obama, who has revived a dormant campaign debate over health care with an intensified attack on the McCain plan. Conscious that the issue plays well with swing voters, Mr. Obama devoted a speech on Saturday to characterizing Mr. McCain’s plan as “radical” and a “Washington bait and switch,” and he has reinforced the message in four television advertisements.

-snip-
Over the weekend, Mr. Obama more accurately characterized the McCain plan as a swap but one that would work to the detriment of millions. Middle-class families, he said, would “watch the system they rely on begin to unravel before their eyes.”
The business leaders said that was also their fear. Despite steady declines this decade, employers still provide coverage to 62 percent of Americans younger than 65. Surveys show that they want to continue doing so to attract and maintain a productive workforce.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/us/politics/07health.html