Powerful business interests that once teamed up to defeat Democratic healthcare plans now advocate extending medical insurance to millions of Americans. Among the champions of change is the trade group representing the nation's leading health insurance firms. That industry developed the "Harry and Louise" television ad campaign, which helped turn public opinion against the universal healthcare plan proposed by President Clinton and then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton in 1994.

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.

The two plans being announced this week — the details of which were not available — come in the wake of ambitious blueprints for universal health coverage put forward by two prominent Republicans: in California by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and in Massachusetts under Gov. Mitt Romney, who has since left office and is a 2008 presidential candidate

Now, Democratic constituent groups, including labor and seniors' organizations, are joining with big business to demand a substantive response to the nation's healthcare problem, which has left 46 million people uninsured and has undermined American corporations' ability to compete internationally.

See full story in the L A Times, Unlikely allies advocate healthcare overhaul