Here is what to expect from plans like these and other plans in which insurance companies are kept in the overall equation. Higher costs, the poor getting really screwed, and people still being forced to make impossible choices. Unlike some, I’m happy to be in the front of the line “pushing insurance companies into the sea.” I worked for one, and the physicians in my family deal with them daily. They Are Evil. So long as we continue to worry about all those poor, sad little insurance company execs not making enough money by denying children with rare cancers life saving treatment because it’s “experiemental,” we won’t have a solution.

Universal single payer. It’s the only way. Period.