Obama's Health Care Plan

The LA Times is headlining an article on Google News about Barack Obama's plan to expand medical coverage to the uninsured. The tagline- "The Democratic hopeful's proposal lacks specifics, but he says it would cut costs while expanding coverage to everyone." Wow, sounds foolproof!

The article doesn't have much on specifics, except that consultants for Obama have stated that the plan can save up to $200 billion a year through increased efficiency.

"The plan's most far-reaching aspect is a set of cost-containment changes that Obama said could save a typical insured family up to $2,500 a year by wringing
out much of the inefficiency and waste that make the U.S. healthcare system the world's costliest."

Does anyone know what this means? I'm guessing it means that my doctor will stop using $100 bills as prescription tickets, or something. The token industry expert interviewed also disagrees-

"The numbers don't seem to work very well," said health policy analyst John Sheils, senior vice president of the Lewin Group, a top healthcare consulting firm. "I think [the savings] are just dramatically overstated."

What's left? Gratuitous naysaying from a competing campaign!

"The Edwards campaign also criticized the plan, saying the lack of a requirement that individuals buy health insurance means it will not achieve universal coverage."

I think that I'd like my next job to be one of the reporters that writes articles covering proposed legislation. It seems pretty easy. Every article seems to follow this formula:

1) Senator/Representative/Electoral Hopeful X proposes a plan to fix Y costing Z
2) Industry Expert says plan is way too optimistic
3) Irrelevant ass clown weighs in

I can't wait for my Pulitzer!