I've heard a lot of talk about how the public option in health care reform was to offer competition to private insurers and it doesn't make much sense to me.
Imagine, instead, if we were talking about grocery stores. Do we need a public grocery store option to keep Safeway, Giant, Ralph's, Vons, Stop & Shop, Publix, Winn-Dixie, Piggly Wiggly, Trader Joe's, or Whole Foods "honest?"
Yes, those are sarcastic quotation marks.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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Does the public school system keep private schools honest?
No.
In the broadest sense, I'd be tempted say yes. It's not impossible, after all, for a private school to be even worse than the public schools; I rather think the private schools do have to provide something better than public school quality to attract consumers. But the true wretchedness of the public schools - and different but in some ways worse problems in much of Europe - don't make public education an alluring model for public health care.
I take educated, healthy citizens to be a public good. I note that our public-private education system provides education for all up to a public standard. I also note that our private-public health-care system leaves several tens of millions without adequate care according to the public standard we establish with Medicare, Medicaid, S-Chip, the VA, Tricare, etc. A public-private system modeled on our education system would help ensure we achieved the public good of an educated, healthy citizenry. What is that worth to us? Very little, to hear some tell it.
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