Arguing over positions is never an indicator of success in negotiations. Unfortunately, that's where the "debate" over how we're going to provide healthcare in this country started. Negotiations of this kind almost always have a win:lose outcome.
There's a better way. There's a simpler way. There's a civil way.
If we don't change modes, a bad outcome is guaranteed. The current process should be stopped in its tracks and we should start over. Here's how:
Benchmark
We have lots of data showing that many healthcare systems outperform ours. The VA and Medicare outperform the US system as a whole. Why are we not explicitly comparing our systems to others that perform better? Why don't we use successful systems as templates for creating our own? This would be the sensible way to go, but we haven't yet discussed and agreed as a nation what we want from a system, so we ignore the comparisons and the lessons they could teach us.
Discuss Interests, not Positions
Must have this. Must have that. These are positions and aren't useful in advancing a civil discussion. They are only useful to the lobbyists. Positions demand that they win while we lose. Positions prevent creativite solutions.
It's far more constructive to pause and ask "what is the interest that is serverd by that position?" and "are there ways to fill that interest other than the stated position?" and "what are our interests in a healthcare system, generally?". It's a discussion about values.
This discussion by-passes entrenched positions and better defines the problems to be solved and challenges to be overcome. Once the various interests are understood and our goals are defined, we can then intelligently look at the various models as benchmarks. We can then take the best the world has developed, tune it to anything unique about us, and have the world's best healtcare system.
Focusing on interests rather than positions is how the US and Soviet Union stepped back from the nuclear abyss. Focusing on interests rather than positions is how Republicans and Democrats can drive change that improves our system dramatically.
Saving Money, not increasing the deficit
Unless we as a nation are dumber that scores of other nations, we'll be able to save money with our newly defined system. It is the insistence on positions that drives the cost model everyone is looking at. Get rid of the positions, focus on interests, benchmark, tune for the US, and the cost model changes.
US healthcare today is only #1 in cost. Why should we accept that?