Just a random idea that I'm curious to hear feedback on: go to single-payer for prescriptions/pharmaceuticals (so insulin, heart meds, birth control, viagra, etc.) and let things like physician's visits, hospital visits, etc. be covered by either private insurance, medicare/medicaid, or out of pocket. This thread could easily devolve into a long discussion about the "injustice" of the second part, every other developed country, etc. but in the U.S. there are some very real negatives to how medicare compensates hospitals and doctors. It seems to me that pharmaceuticals are the low-hanging fruit where a single-payer could greatly reduce costs and burdens with minimal damage to the function of private industry. It's not a perfect solution by any means but it could be a functional stop-gap policy. It also has one toe in each ideological camp so that may help in the legislative processes (though I can't imagine pharmaceutical lobbyists would take kindly to the proposal).

I was thinking that we could precondition patent protection and NIH funding for pharmaceuticals to participation in the government's single-payer coverage. Not sure if the first point would be constitutional (probably an argument against applying this to existing patents)

Just a thought, curious to hear others' thoughts.