Expansions of bidding procedures may lead to prices that better reflect actual production costs.If successful, these programs and others like them will reduce overall health care expenditures, provide a windfall of “indirect” savings to CMS, and all the while improve patient care. By contrast, broad payment cuts and benefit cuts may harm patients and lead to a less ambitious and less equitable health care system. Reducing waste is by far the largest, most humane, and smartest opportunity for evolving an affordable health care system.