Addendum to yesterday's Wal-Mart post

Yesterday I talked about healthcare and Wal-Mart in this post:

If I own a business and I have some additional work that needs to be done, why can't I just hire someone to do it? Why should I have to worry about health care for this person? Why should that even be my concern? I just need somebody to do the work! If I'm a small business, especially, I risk bankrupting myself by trying to do the "right thing" (especially if I have to compete with a big fish like Wal-Mart).

Well, I found some new data on DailyKos pertaining to that. Apparently, businesses are able to take advantage of a tax deduction when they sponsor a health insurance plan for their employees. I'm not sure how much of a deduction, but such a deduction would help offset some of the cost, at least.

Nevertheless, the Bush administration wants to do away with this deduction. As it says,

45 million Americans don't have health care today. How many more wouldn't have it if the administration takes away the only economic incentive that companies have to provide it?

Obviously this would hurt a lot of people, but it would provide some additional incentive to do something about the American healthcare mess, too.