The Public Option
How to Expand Freedom, Increase Opportunity, and Promote Equality
Published on 1. July 2019
Book
Hardback
296 pages
978-0-674-98733-3 (ISBN)
Description
A solution to inequalities wherever we look-in health care, secure retirement, education-is as close as the public library. Or the post office, community pool, or local elementary school. Public options-reasonably priced government-provided services that coexist with private options-are all around us, ready to increase opportunity, expand freedom, and reawaken civic engagement if we will only let them.
Whenever you go to your local public library, send mail via the post office, or visit Yosemite, you are taking advantage of a longstanding American tradition: the public option. Some of the most useful and beloved institutions in American life are public options-yet they are seldom celebrated as such. These government-supported opportunities coexist peaceably alongside private options, ensuring equal access and expanding opportunity for all.
Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne Alstott challenge decades of received wisdom about the proper role of government and consider the vast improvements that could come from the expansion of public options. Far from illustrating the impossibility of effective government services, as their critics claim, public options hold the potential to transform American civic life, offering a wealth of solutions to seemingly intractable problems, from housing shortages to the escalating cost of health care.
Imagine a low-cost, high-quality public option for child care. Or an extension of the excellent Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees to all Americans. Or every person having access to an account at the Federal Reserve Bank, with no fees and no minimums. From broadband internet to higher education, The Public Option reveals smart new ways to meet pressing public needs while spurring healthy competition. More effective than vouchers or tax credits, public options could offer us all fairer choices and greater security.
Whenever you go to your local public library, send mail via the post office, or visit Yosemite, you are taking advantage of a longstanding American tradition: the public option. Some of the most useful and beloved institutions in American life are public options-yet they are seldom celebrated as such. These government-supported opportunities coexist peaceably alongside private options, ensuring equal access and expanding opportunity for all.
Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne Alstott challenge decades of received wisdom about the proper role of government and consider the vast improvements that could come from the expansion of public options. Far from illustrating the impossibility of effective government services, as their critics claim, public options hold the potential to transform American civic life, offering a wealth of solutions to seemingly intractable problems, from housing shortages to the escalating cost of health care.
Imagine a low-cost, high-quality public option for child care. Or an extension of the excellent Thrift Savings Plan for federal employees to all Americans. Or every person having access to an account at the Federal Reserve Bank, with no fees and no minimums. From broadband internet to higher education, The Public Option reveals smart new ways to meet pressing public needs while spurring healthy competition. More effective than vouchers or tax credits, public options could offer us all fairer choices and greater security.
Reviews / Votes
We are so accustomed to arguments that government only infringes upon freedom that we forget how government, when intelligently deployed, can expand our choices-and yes, make us more free. In this important book Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne Alstott make a brilliant, clear, and accessible case for how public options in areas such as banking, health care, and child care can improve lives, especially for those whom the marketplace marginalizes. We already celebrate many public options, such as our great public universities and libraries. Sitaraman and Alstott urge us to think inventively about other areas where public options could make our nation both better and fairer. -- E. J. Dionne, Jr., coauthor of <i>One Nation After Trump</i> and author of <i>Our Divided Political Heart</i> Timely, important, and convincing, this book is pretty much the definition of 'fresh thinking.' Key reading for a political generation that is on the search for new ideas for old problems. -- Tim Wu, author of <i>The Curse of Bigness: Antitrust in the New Gilded Age</i> At a time of widespread debates about the role of public provision, Sitaraman and Alstott make a vibrant case for developing and preserving public options in education, health care, child care, broadband access, banking, and retirement benefits. To get beyond slogans and move toward real and practical proposals to improve the daily lives of Americans, and strengthen our commitments to others, read this book. -- Martha Minow, author of <i>Partners, Not Rivals: Privatization and the Public Good</i> In this timely and stirring call for reform, two of our nation's smartest policy thinkers recapture our past to chart our future. Sitaraman and Alstott remind us that Americans have long supported policies that offer a choice between government and the private sector, and they show us how this model-the public option-could provide innovative solutions to perennial challenges facing child care, retirement savings, higher education, and much more. -- Jacob S. Hacker, author of <i>The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream</i> Filled with ingenious ideas for strengthening the public sector and also bolstering our democracy...Demonstrate[s] that true public institutions, such as public schools and public child care, are more efficient as well as more equitable than private ones trying to carry out public purposes. -- Robert Kuttner * American Prospect * I hope every 2020 presidential candidate-yes, I'm being optimistic about President Trump-reads the policy book of the summer... The two law professors are not interested in government taking over everything. On the contrary, what they seek is to expand choice. -- E. J. Dionne, Jr. * Washington Post * Their proposal is not that the public sector should displace the private sector, but rather that offering a publicly-run alternative would expand everyone's choices and ensure that no one is left too far behind. -- Simon Johnson * Project Syndicate * An enthusiastic, accessible, and convincing case that more 'public option' government services would significantly improve the quality of life for average Americans. * Publishers Weekly (starred review) * Makes a compelling case for affordable government-funded services that coexist with private options. * ProMarket *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge, Mass
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Dimensions
Height: 211 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 28 mm
Weight
476 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-674-98733-3 (9780674987333)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Ganesh Sitaraman is Chancellor Faculty Fellow, Professor of Law, and Director of the Program in Law and Government at Vanderbilt Law School. He is a columnist for Guardian US and has been a longtime advisor to Senator Elizabeth Warren, serving as her policy director and senior counsel. He is the author of The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens Our Republic, a New York Times Notable Book. Anne L. Alstott is the Jacquin D. Bierman Professor at Yale Law School and author of A New Deal for Old Age, among other books. She has won her school's top teaching award five times in her twenty-six-year career. She has written or cowritten pieces for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Huffington Post, and Slate, and has appeared on the public radio programs Marketplace and On Point.