Ad blasts 'conservative' health proposals

NEW YORK, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- A political advertisement that debuted Wednesday charges U.S. conservatives with wanting to "do to healthcare what they did to banking."

The ad, sponsored by a coalition of labor unions, healthcare advocates and left-leaning think tanks, appeared in Wednesday's edition of The New York Times and attacked healthcare reform policies advocated by Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain, although it doesn't mention the U.S. senator from Arizona by name.

The group Health Care for America Now said in a release that "conservatives" would make the problem of uninsured Americans worse because "they propose to tax, as income, the health benefits that 160 million people get on the job. This is purposely designed to destroy the incentive for companies to provide health insurance to their workers."

McCain's campaign says his healthcare platform seeks to make individually purchased insurance plans more attractive by eliminating the income tax exclusion given to employer-based health benefits but denied to those holding individual plans. He would couple it with $5,000 tax credit for all, the Times said.

But the coalition contends it's an effort to undermine traditional employer-based healthcare and a ploy to reduce business costs that will only increase the number of uninsured, the newspaper said.