The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) has been one of the stalwart defenders of health freedom. But its recent association with two activist liberal groups is raising eyebrows.

The NFIB was a leader in the 1990s in explaining to the American people the loss of freedom in the Clinton health reform initiative. It even produced the famous Harry and Louise ad that raised questions in the minds of the American people about the restrictions and complexities of the plan.

But something has changed 15 years later. The NFIB now has joined with the AARP and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), as well as the Business Roundtable, in a campaign called "Divided We Fail."

The NFIB says the campaign provides a national platform to talk about why small business is so important to America and why rising health costs continue to be the number one concern of small businesses. The Business Roundtable sees it as a way to "catalyze new thinking" about high health costs.

The goals of the joint campaign sound innocuous enough. But it's important to look at the other agendas of these strange bedfellows, especially the SEIU. The union that represents one million service workers, primarily in hospitals and hotels, is working to build a number of coalitions to advance its agenda.

And what is that agenda?

The SEIU's "Vision for Reform" calls for "a universal health care system" with "guaranteed affordable health coverage for all Americans" and a "core health care benefit similar to the one that is available to federal employees."

The union wants all of the presidential candidates to have "a detailed, comprehensive health care plan that meets those principles." The SEIU says that "All of the major Democratic presidential candidates have met that challenge, unlike their Republican counterparts -- an essential difference that SEIU members will highlight as they work to elect the next president," according to a February 4, 2008, SEIU news release.

The union plans to spend $75 million this year on its grassroots advocacy campaign, including paid advertising and a nationwide tour, to "make health care the central issue in the election…draw sharp distinctions between the Republican and Democratic presidential nominees' approach to health care…and to help elect a president committed to real solutions."

These business groups may have their own vision that incorporates more free-market principles. But are they prepared to spend $75 million to promote them? If not, they risk getting used in this effort.

The NFIB and Business Roundtable are not alone in their involvement in this strained coalition-building: Wal-Mart, Intel, General Mills, and AT&T, among others, announced last year they are working with SEIU to "overhaul the country's broken health care system…When this many different perspectives unite around a common goal, it makes very clear that health care reform is achievable," the May 8, 2007, release announces.

Maybe. Maybe not. I absolutely believe in coalitions and am a facilitator and supporter of many conversations among people who come from different ideological perspectives seeking consensus around core ideas. But there must be some common philosophical ground for a conversation or you wind up with an unworkable mismatch of policy.

It is crucial that principle and policy not be lost in a misguided attempt at reaching an artificial agreement that can't possibly hold up when writing new laws.

The 2008 election will provide a clear contrast between two different philosophies of health reform, as I described in my recent Wall Street Journal piece. It deceives voters to pretend that here is a middle ground between a much expanded role for government in our health sector and a properly functioning, patient-centered free market.

NFIB surveyed its members, and it found that more than half of them support an individual mandate -- requiring individuals to purchase health coverage. Therein lies their support for universal coverage.

But do they understand that an individual mandate immediately morphs into an employer mandate, which NFIB adamantly opposes, because employers will be required to pay a government-determined share of the premiums? Is this the compromise that NFIB is prepared to make?

If businesses think an individual mandate is going to make their health care problems go away, they should think again.

Even Hillary Clinton criticized an individual mandate in 1994, saying, "The individual mandate...makes it very difficult to determine and monitor who is in the system and who is out. It would require tracking individuals as they move in and out of jobs, as they move in and out of the insurance market. It would require, in our view, the IRS to engage in an enormous administrative oversight of our health care system."

And the NFIB's solution to control costs? "Laws, regulations and insurance arrangements should direct health care spending to those goods and services that will maximize health." What? Is that really the NFIB calling for more laws and regulations over health care?

The affiliation with the SEIU should be causing heartburn for NFIB and Business Roundtable members. The SEIU boasts of its work in helping to pass the Massachusetts and Maine health care reengineering efforts and of the union's work in crafting and helping to pass the Wal-Mart bill in Maryland. The bill targeted Wal-Mart in requiring it to spend at least 8% of its payroll on health insurance. The bill was overturned by a U.S. District Judge as violating ERISA.

Now that is certainly a business-friendly record for the NFIB and the Business Roundtable (which has been less involved in the health debate in the past) to associate themselves with!

I do know that businesses want urgent action on health issues, but the agenda of the SEIU and the AARP, which has been lobbying for more government control over health care and pharmaceutical pricing, is very much out of sync with freedom in the choice of private health insurance and competitive market forces to bring down costs. That is the conversation we need to be having.

Principles matter. This coalition compromises the ability to educate the electorate about free-market solutions in health care.

Let's hope that other organizations don't follow suit. Otherwise, they will be compromised in their ability to move forward with policies that would create a truly competitive health sector and allow the U.S. to create a uniquely American solution to the challenges of a 21st century health sector.