In a sign of how the political climate is shifting, powerful business interests that once teamed up to defeat Democratic healthcare plans are joining with labor unions and other unlikely allies to advocate extending medical insurance to millions of Americans. Today, the president of the Service Employees International Union will stand with the director of the Business Roundtable, which represents the nation's leading corporations, to announce one campaign to overhaul healthcare. On Thursday, private health insurance companies will join with doctors' organizations and health-activist groups on the left to announce a plan for universal coverage.
See "Unlikely allies advocate healthcare overhaul", Tom Hamburger and Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2007