White House Budget Director Peter Orszag said this week he expects legislation to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system to be completed this year.

The Employment Policies Institute, a pro-business group that helped defeat President Clinton’s healthcare plan, announced Thursday a $10 million campaign against the pending healthcare legislation. The ad will run over the next eight to 10 weeks in six states – Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska and North Dakota – starting Monday. Those states are represented by centrist senators whose votes are critical to passage of the healthcare bill.

Senator Tom Coburn (R-Oklahoma) said at a town hall meeting this week that the national healthcare bill would “increase individual family insurance costs by an average of $4,200 a year, divide a physician’s loyalties between you and the government, and create an avalanche of brand new bureaucratic agencies.”

Congress intends to consider legislation next week that would guarantee workers paid sick time. Senator Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut) is pushing legislation that would require businesses with 15 or more employees to offer paid sick leave to full- and part-time workers: seven paid days off a year, or an hour of sick time for every 30 hours worked. In the House, Congressman George Miller (D-California) has proposed legislation that would provide up to five paid sick days for workers with H1N1 flu and other contagious diseases. Nationwide, 84% of workers said they felt pressured to come to work sick because of the recession, according to a September poll by Vancouver based Angus Reid Strategies.