The Warren plan includes several key assumptions, including starkly lower prescription drug prices, minimal administrative spending and health care costs that grow at a significantly slower pace.

Warren backers describe these cuts as ambitious and assertive, contending that the American health system — which has the highest prices in the developed world — could weather the change. Other health care experts call the ideas unrealistic, given the revenue that American doctors, hospitals and drug companies have become accustomed to earning.

The key question in this debate is, how quickly can the United States tamp down its sky-high health care prices?

“The whole point of this analysis, which took weeks and was done with real discipline, was to come up with, what is realistic?” said Don Berwick, a co-author of an economic analysis of the Warren plan, and former administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid under President Barack Obama. “I think they’re achievable and, for those who are critical, please show me yours.”