The response to this is "why not focus on doing both"? Especially since the alternatives to Bernie's health care plan aren't "well, we aren't going to do ANYTHING to fix health care and focus ONLY on social promotion of racial and ethnic minorities", but really "hey, let's maybe see if a public option will help curb cost increases while also offering a government health care plan for poorer individuals to buy into or get completely subsidized into because we, as the government, can set these prices". After all, if there is only one health care plan in the country, what happens when Republicans take control of the executive branch and, with HHS, work to restrict women's access to abortions or contraceptives through government health care? I mean, at least the damage would be mitigated with a private sector willing to provide these plans for a little more a month and Obamacare is still around to off-set costs with subsidies. There are drawbacks to such plans and they are legitimate. There are also legitimate alternatives to those plans.