The New Health Dialogue

As far as we can tell, our parents' terrier, Lucy, has two emotional states: guardedly wary and openly hostile. The same might be said of American business's take on health reform. They view the issue with the cautious optimism that Lucy treats a delicious strip of fake bacon, but are ready to tear into offending proposals like an unsuspecting pant leg.

A few weeks ago, the New York Times' Kevin Sack captured some of that guardedness profiling business's reaction to the McCain plan to overhaul the tax treatment of health benefits. Commenting on the reactions to McCain's plan, our colleague Joanne Kenen noted that other plans to remove or limit the employer tax exclusion do it as part of larger reforms "that would expand coverage and strengthen consumer protections in the individual market. McCain, as these business groups make clear, doesn't."

Today, Sack follows up with a piece capturing business's wariness toward Obama's health care plan.

Most of their concern centers around as yet unknown details of plan—what does a "meaningful contribution" on the part of employers mean in dollars and cents. Other questions arose around the small business tax credits Obama has proposed, specifically how "small" are the small businesses that receive.

As we've said before, campaign proposals are much more like watercolors than detailed blueprints for reform. They may outline a candidate's general approach to health reform, but the specific details will be hammered out with the incoming Congress. As those decisions are made, the participation of business—both large and small—will be important to finding a sustainable solution. And although their interests are far more complex than our irascible terrier (bacon?!), like Lucy, as long as there's something they want (health reform?!), they'll be at the table.