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The Public Option: How to Expand Freedom, Increase Opportunity, and Promote Equality
296Overview
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 optionsyet 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.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780674987333 |
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Publisher: | Harvard |
Publication date: | 07/01/2019 |
Pages: | 296 |
Sales rank: | 635,023 |
Product dimensions: | 5.60(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.20(d) |
About the Author
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.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part 1 Understanding the Public Option
1 The Limits of Private Action 11
2 Why Public Options? 24
3 The Theory of the Public Option 44
4 Caveats and Counterarguments 66
Part 2 The History of the Public Option
5 Public Libraries, Social Security, and Other Successes 97
6 Mixed Results in Education and Housing 110
Part 3 The Public Option and Public Policy
7 Retirement 129
8 Higher Education 149
9 Banking 169
10 Child Care 181
11 Health Care 202
12 And More 223
Notes 235
Acknowledgments 275
Index 277