That issue has been on the minds of employees of Delta Air Lines and thousands of other employees as their companies flirt with bankruptcy. Taxpayers would have to foot the bill, and Snow said companies should be held to their promises.

"Those are obligations, those are commitments. They've been made. They have to be funded. They're contractual relationships. They can't be walked away from," Snow said.

He said the Bush administration has been discussing changes, but gave few details. He said the changes would be proposed next year, if the president were re-elected.

Snow said one change might be to strengthen the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which has assumed the obligations of 3,400 pension funds. It takes in $1 billion annually in premiums, but has been paying out $3 billion a year to pensioners. With companies such as US Airways and United Airlines filing for bankruptcy and preparing to walk away from pension obligations, many observers fear taxpayers will be left holding the bag for billions of pension payments.

Snow visited Cincinnati to campaign for the president. He toured CBS Technologies in Bond Hill, a minority-owned firm that manages telecommunications systems, and met with heads of companies in the local Minority Business Accelerator. Snow later had lunch with about 50 businesspeople at the offices of the Greater Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce downtown.

At all of Thursday's stops, Snow said rising health care costs are preventing companies from hiring workers. He promoted health spending accounts (HSAs), created by last year's Medicare amendments. HSAs allow consumers to set aside pretax earnings for health care expenses.

Since consumers would spend their own money, they'd consider their health-care choices more carefully. "When we have our own money at stake in things we tend to make better decisions," he said. About 25 percent to 40 percent of those starting HSAs currently have no health insurance, he said.

But Snow could not say how many of the nation's 45 million uninsured HSAs would help. He acknowledged that low-income Americans who don't pay taxes wouldn't be helped by these accounts. He said the administration plans to propose a tax credit and refund to help low-income people start HSAs.

Snow said one congressional critic of the HSAs said they'd cost consumers billions of dollars. "I answered I hope so, because the more they cost, the more we're lowering health care costs," he said.

E-mail johnb@enquirer.com