The Public Option: How to Expand Freedom, Increase Opportunity, and Promote Equality,Ganesh Sitaraman and Anne L. Alstott

-About  this book

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.

-Contents
Introduction
Part One
UNDERSTANDING THE PUBLIC OPTION
1. The Limits of Private Action
2. Why Public Options?
3. The Theory of the Public Option
4. Caveats and Counterarguments
Part Two
THE HISTORY OF THE PUBLIC OPTION
5. Public Libraries, Social Security, and Other Successes
6. Mixed Results in Education and Housing
Part Three
THE PUBLIC OPTION AND PUBLIC POLICY
7. Retirement
8. Higher Education
9. Banking

10. Child Care
11. Health Care
12. And More
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

-Caractéristiques

Date de parution :1 juillet 2019

Éditeur : Harvard University Press

N.de pages : 296 pages

ISBN-10 : 0674987330

ISBN-13 : 978-0674987333

Poids: 476 g

Dimensions : 14.48 x 2.79 x 21.08 cm

Langue:  Anglais