Robert Reich has a good article...

...in The Wall Street Journal today in re the public option. In it he says:

Critics say the public option is really a Trojan horse for a government takeover of all of health insurance. But nothing could be further from the truth. It's an option. No one has to choose it. Individuals and families will merely be invited to compare costs and outcomes. Presumably they will choose the public plan only if it offers them and their families the best deal -- more and better health care for less.

I disagree with him on one point: it is a Trojan horse. But that's okay, because the only way to insure everyone and hold down the rising cost of health care is a single-payer system. And that's just not politically feasible in this country right now. So a public system has to be put into place as an "option" first. If it provides good coverage to everyone at a lower rate than the private insurers then it will indeed crowd them out. And the U. S. will evolve into a single-payer system with private insurance to augment the public system like in many European and Far Eastern countries.