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The Public Option

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Concentrated economic power had a variety of detrimental consequences. — location: 307 ^ref-8904

Progressive Era reformers passed antitrust laws and public utilities regulations in order to break up or regulate concentrated economic power. They did so not just for economic reasons of efficiency but also for constitutional reasons. They understood that America could not remain a republic—it could not have political freedom—if power was concentrated in a small number of corporations that would try to rig the political system to serve their interests. — location: 309 ^ref-3516

Concentrated power once again means less competition, higher prices, and the increasing political power of big monopolies that control virtually every aspect of Americans’ lives. — location: 319 ^ref-54985

Privatizers begin with the assumptions, often undefended, that government programs are always and everywhere ineffective and corrupt and that private markets work perfectly. — location: 330 ^ref-64789

the key characteristic of the public option is that it is non-exclusive on the benefits side, even if it may be mandatory on the funding side. — location: 412 ^ref-21692

in states with higher thresholds (that is, where you can earn more money and still get health care through Medicaid), there is greater job mobility. — location: 492 ^ref-44802

“entrepreneurship lock.” Once their health care is guaranteed, these older entrepreneurs decide to start their own businesses.11 — location: 507 ^ref-20296

Public options encourage an active and committed citizenry, which is the essence of a free republic. — location: 615 ^ref-45836

our political system should incorporate a dynamic ideal of what a decent life requires, and make it available to all. — location: 624 ^ref-41970

The final price for any good or service will ensure that firms can pay their owners a market rate of profit. But there is no reason to suppose that the market will guarantee all citizens access at a fair price. — location: 645 ^ref-22203

the case for public options rests on the relative competencies of existing institutions. — location: 809 ^ref-26789

the federal government spends more than $100 billion per year on market subsidies for retirement, but a whopping 66 percent of the subsidies are claimed by taxpayers in the top 20 percent of the income distribution. — location: 845 ^ref-16412

One of the signal harms of neoliberalism is that it encouraged Americans to believe in an exaggerated distinction between “free markets” and “government intervention.” In practice, government and the law are thoroughly—and inevitably—intertwined in the economy, and nearly every institution mixes public and private to some degree. — location: 915 ^ref-24914

To believe in the slippery slope argument is to believe that people are incapable of making distinctions between situations that are fundamentally different. — location: 985 ^ref-30814

All organizations—government, churches, colleges, private businesses—are made up of people, and people can be petty, power-hungry, incompetent, lazy, and inefficient wherever they work. — location: 1007 ^ref-58200

Office politics, favoritism, and bias can insulate incompetence in any setting. — location: 1012 ^ref-47482

The right comparison for the fantasyland of perfect markets is the fantasyland of perfect government only pursuing the public interest with vigor and honesty. — location: 1048 ^ref-26359

we can see that this second version of the distortion objection is just a complaint about lost profits. — location: 1107 ^ref-21626

The simplicity and salience of public options have everything to do with why they fare well even in the face of lobbying. When people know about a government program, they can get mobilized around it if lobbyists or special interests try to change, cut, or distort the program. — location: 1127 ^ref-39464

when government programs are complicated and fly under the radar, it’s hard for citizens to know what’s going on with the programs, and lobbyists can operate in the shadows with a much lower risk of popular scrutiny. — location: 1131 ^ref-3676

government is a “they,” not an “it.” — location: 1150 ^ref-35936

The very fact that Levin is skeptical of public options proves our point. He and others like him will be vigilant in making sure that public options are working as they should be. When they aren’t working right, we are 100 percent confident that he and others will sound the alarm. — location: 1180 ^ref-9997

Our goal is not to insulate people from their bad decisions. Instead, our goal is to construct a platform that supports people who want to act responsibly. Our worry is that laissez-faire markets and market subsidies have badly served Americans who want to live good lives. Public options aim to ensure access to universally important services when the free market has failed to provide good options for most Americans. — location: 1206 ^ref-45390

If the supply of higher education is inelastic, meaning that we can’t build more schools or get more spaces opened up at a college or university, then giving every student a $5,000 voucher won’t actually decrease prices. Colleges can just increase tuition prices, perhaps even by the entire $5,000, and still have fully enrolled classes. — location: 1228 ^ref-63004

Wealthy people will buy books and build up their personal libraries, but for many people, access to books is enough, even if it is more limited. In these cases, a public option is better than no option at all. — location: 1286 ^ref-27552

In a sense, a basic income is actually a type of public option—it is a public option for wages. But we don’t think that a basic income is sufficient, because it cannot fully protect freedom and promote opportunity. — location: 1319 ^ref-53399

the moral case for basic income assumes that markets set fair prices for scarce resources, based on competing demand among individuals with equal endowments. — location: 1326 ^ref-58545

basic income and public options can work together. — location: 1336 ^ref-28082

The postal service innovated frequently throughout its history— — location: 1370 ^ref-4743

Private companies like AT&T, and later internet companies, didn’t want the postal system as a competitor, and they lobbied hard to keep it from providing new services. After decades of case-by-case battles, Congress ended the war and declared private companies the victor. — location: 1374 ^ref-23672

The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 banned the postal system from providing any innovative services beyond traditional mail delivery. — location: 1376 ^ref-54428

The poverty rate among the elderly as of 2017 was less than 10 percent. If Social Security were suddenly repealed, the poverty rate among those over sixty-five would jump to an astonishing 40 percent. — location: 1445 ^ref-879

historian Dora Costa found that older people have always preferred independent living when they could manage it. — location: 1507 ^ref-48677

public administration is key to the success of New York’s public housing. — location: 1715 ^ref-59424

Studies have found that landlords charge more to Section 8 tenants than to market tenants, meaning that they reap an extra profit at the government’s expense, as we would expect from a voucher-based system. — location: 1753 ^ref-52449

the public option for mortgage insurance actually created a wholly new product in the market itself—and in the process helped make America’s middle class into a class of homeowners. — location: 1770 ^ref-17337

In 2013, two-thirds of the government’s subsidies for pensions went to the richest 20 percent of taxpayers. — location: 1851 ^ref-48987

some employers used to buy annuities for their workers, and that worked out great, because insurance companies are good at insuring large pools of workers and the long-lived are balanced out by the short-lived. — location: 1972 ^ref-47312

there is no functional private market for annuities for individuals. — location: 1975 ^ref-41444

arguing that taxpayers should not be subsidizing free college for the children of the wealthy. This argument was misguided, because most taxpayers would not be subsidizing the wealthy; the wealthy would end up paying for college through higher tax rates. — location: 2332 ^ref-46611