Reply #17: The "essential" aspect of ANY proposal is how efficiently it can cut costs AND provide Care. [View All]

[patrice]

They are still in the phase in which the cost cutting bids are being put on the table.

I agree with what Sibelius implies that efficient cost cutting has to come first, because that's the ONLY thing that will allow us to cover MORE PEOPLE.

A plan, co-op or public option, that doesn't cut costs enough will end up being nothing more than a label that will sink because the pool will not be diverse enough to sustain it.

It IS a problem that the only TRUE cost cutter, Single Payer, is not on the table, maybe for some of them that's because they know it's cost cutting potential, but it does seem to me that if you want to force a serious cost cutting bid out of the Private for-profit insurance, you need to threaten them with REAL competition from a REAL cost cutting system/Single Payer.

So what we SHOULD have right now is a war between cost cutting in the for-profit Insurance camp and cost cutting in the health care provider side (to justify Medicare for All).