Kaus on Healthcare Speech

Pretty interesting commentary. Money bits:

[W]e've estimated that most of this plan can be paid for by finding savings within the existing health care system

Reducing the waste and inefficiency in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for most of this plan ..

a) Does anyone really believe this--that is, if you define waste and inefficiency as things that don't actually help improve your health, as opposed to things that might improve your health marginally but aren't worth the cost? b) Specifically, does the average Medicare recipient feel that the system that he enjoys is rife with waste, inefficiency, fraud, and abuse? I suspect not. This seems like the greatest point of vulnerability in the speech. ... Faced with the need to choose between a) alarming centrist budget hawks concerned about deficits driven by rising health costs and b) alarming seniors concerned about the measures that might be taken to control rising health costs, Obama chose to pretend the problem didn't exist (though he did throw budget hawks a crude procedural bone--see #9 below). ...

Is it just me or does this whole idea sound crazy? Just fixing inefficiencies, really? That sounds like a McCain idea. If the government has all these inefficiencies and waste within their own systems, what do you need a big bill for? Why not just fix the inefficiencies and waste? I'm confused.