"Today, the trend in health care is for benefits reduction and cost containment."

So we're in an environment that's very concerned with cost containment.

"We believe in cost containment, but this would hurt the most vulnerable population and the court agreed with us."

You expect more friction when you're trying to work for cost containment.

He said, "Clearly, if we are serious about cost containment, private insurance companies must have competition from a public plan."

"So they have had to do some kind of cost containment, and they're making it look like it's a tremendous benefit."

"The fact that I spent the last 20 years working with the major players on cost containment brings a lot of comfort to them."

"There should be much greater emphasis on cost containment," he said.

My feeling is they're reaching a long way for cost containment.

But it's not hard to see why cost containment was a political loser.