Johnathan Cohn, on the Edwards plan:

In some ways, suggesting that worthwhile government spending should take priority over deficit-reduction is even more controversial than proposing to raise taxes. But that's not the plan's most intriguing — and potentially radical — feature. That distinction would belong to a tiny provision tucked within the Health Market proposal — one that only true aficionados would notice. The provision is for what's known as a Medicare buy-in. When people go to buy insurance through the Health Markets, they'll have the option to buy into a public program modeled on Medicare. This would, in theory, set up a competition between the public and private insurance plans. And, if the public program ends up winning in the long run — by attracting most or all of the subscribers — then eventually you'd have what is basically a single-payer system, in which the government provides insurance directly to most people through something like Medicare.

Kevin Drum, on the Edwards plan:

Upside: Edwards' plan has the potential to evolve into a rational single-payer model in the future. Downside: It might not, and in the meantime it combines the additional cost of universal coverage without the offsetting benefits of the administrative savings from a single-payer system.

Overall, though, it's a decent plan.

Ezra Klein, on the Edwards plan:

In other words, the public sector will finally be allowed to compete with the private sector, and consumers will be able to decide which style they prefer. For Democrats, this is a significant step forward. From there, the plan offers the usual mix of sliding subsidies to ensure affordability, individual mandate to universalize coverage, pay-for-performance promises, and public health fixes. You've heard those bits before. What's new, and what's important, are the community rated health markets that include public insurance. Indeed, the plan satisfied every plank of my progressive health reform test from last week.

Ezra Klein, on the Obama plan:

want to be very clear on this point. Obama's plan is not a universal plan. After it is implemented, it will not have 100 percent of the population covered. It will increase coverage by forcing some employers to begin offering insurance, but it is not particularly heavy-handed even there. This is a plan that makes universality possible — that is budgeted for 100 percent coverage — but does not use a government or individual mandate to force global buy-in.

Kevin Drum, on the Obama plan:

... it sounds like it's a pretty standard take on current conventional healthcare wisdom among Democrats. It relies on private insurance companies, presumably because everyone is convinced that nothing can be passed if we piss off insurance companies. There's some kind of play-or-pay tax on businesses: either provide insurance for your employees or else pay into a central fund. Small businesses will go ballistic over this, but I guess it's OK to piss them off. Oddly, there's apparently no personal mandate, which is everyone's favorite healthcare policy prescription du jour, which in turn makes it a little unclear how the whole insurance company thing is going to work.

Jonathan Cohn, on the Obama plan:

Finally, sources close the Obama campaign are making a not-ridiculous case that the plan really will achieve universal coverage by 2012, as Obama is promising.

Still, I have some serious doubts about that last point, for reasons that have to do with politics as much as policy. Whether you get everybody or not at the outset is one of those big issues that actually matter (as opposed to second-order stuff like, for example, whether the subsidy to small businesses is as big as it should be, etc).

Matthew Yglesias, on the Obama plan:

As you'll see if you read the Official Ezra Klein Analysis of the Obama health care plan, he's managed to transcend the division between those who favor the release of specific health care plans during the campaign and those who oppose it. The plan has tons of details, but on the two most important points — how does the National Health Insurance Exchange (like Edwards' "Health Markets") work, and what is the scale of the new public option — he's pleasingly vague.

Ezra Klein, on Bill Richardson's plan:

In any case, this seems pretty indicative of the Richardson campaign so far. It's a technically sound and fairly workable half-measure coming from a candidate with no apparent rationale for such instinctive caution. Worse, the half-measures involved are neither substantially better half-measures than other, likelier, candidates else have offered, and nor are they part of a larger and more interesting vision than others have outlined. So you tell me, Richardson fans: Why should this make me support his candidacy?