Tomorrow, we will learn more about exactly how this fund will be constructed, but today's stories indicate that about half the money will come from reducing tax breaks for people earning more than $250,000 per year, while another third will come from Medicare by requiring private insurers who provide Medicare Advantage managed care plans to undergo competitive bidding. A bit more may be squeezed from payments to drug companies.

The way we control costs today--purchase "affordable coverage" that doesn't actually cover, or simply go bare and wait until we are really sick to get care--actually raises costs for everyone in the long term. Meanwhile, those of us with good coverage pay drug companies billions so they can innundate us with TV ads for new fangled drugs that may not work any better than the old drugs.

I'm glad the administration recognizes that we have to put some money on the table in order to make some key changes that will bring down costs in the long run. We look forward to more detail tomorrow.

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