Download or read book Politics, Policy, and Public Options written by Ganesh Sitaraman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-01 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A public option is a government-provided social good that exists alongside a similar privately provided good. While the public option is typically identified with health care policy, public options have been a longstanding feature of American life in a variety of sectors, ranging from libraries to swimming pools. Public schools, for example, coexist alongside private schools. However, there is surprisingly little research on 'public options' as a general category. Rather, over the last few decades, considerable scholarly and popular efforts to ensure access to important social goods have focused on market subsidies (like vouchers) or privatization – which both face increasing criticism. Uniting scholars from across disciplines, this volume delves into the theory of the public option, explores several important case studies, and shows how public options could be a corrective to the trend toward privatization and subsidies. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.