And there, in a nutshell, is the problem: A heated, polarized election campaign isn’t the best forum to debate complex, competing proposals for bringing down healthcare costs.

Presidential and congressional candidates aren’t likely to look for ways to combine the best of each approach. Instead, they’re heading into their ideological corners.

There’s a lot of merit in the Ryan-Wyden proposal. “It’s a good compromise,” notes Alice Rivlin, an early proponent of Medicare vouchers and the former director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Clinton. “It preserves traditional Medicare; it gives people more options. But now that the Republican presidential candidates have endorsed it, the Democrats feel they have to reject it.”

There’s a lot of merit in Obama’s advisory board too. Republicans denounce it as an unelected board of 15 that would dictate healthcare decisions, but that’s not true; the healthcare law limited its influence over medical practices, and Congress retained the right to overrule the board’s recommendations.