There's nothing un-American about public health-care option

Leading conservatives continue to voice one basic criticism of President Obama’s proposed reform of the U.S. health-insurance system: It still contains a proposed government-run “public option,� and that’s foreign and un-American. In actuality, public options are commonplace and as American as apple pie. Let’s review the historical facts. Education is an obvious starting point.

The entire American public school education system is a public option. You are free to attend a private school or a public one, but if you choose a public school the government provides the education and pays for it. How “socialist� can you get? When and where did this bizarre notion of “public� education come from, and what might be the implications for adopting a public health option for health in America?

According to an authoritative pronouncement by a U.S. Congresswoman from Texas, public education was “invented� by Communist Russia (the Soviet Union) in 1917. She was opposed to public education as well as government-run public health care as being foreign and un-American. Her remarks were reported as “breaking news� by the media, without further editorial comment.

In fact, public school education was “invented� in this country as early as 1636, required of all towns in Massachusetts by law in 1647, followed by Connecticut, further systematized by the Free Public School Society in New York State in 1805, and extended to high schools in 1827. By the end of the 19th century, public school primary and secondary education was the undisputed American way.

We didn’t stop there. We went on to higher education. The first public state university was established in North Carolina in 1789. Federal legislation called for public financing of agricultural colleges in 1862, extended nationwide by the Hatch Act in 1887. The University of Connecticut was founded as a public agriculture college under state grant in 1888. Other states followed.

Thus, to tell the truth, public education is an American invention, an American practice, and an American ideal. There’s nothing un-American about it.

Here in America the Boston Commons, New York’s Central Park, Sharon’s Green, the Appalachian Trail, Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite, Gettysburg, the Smokies, the Tetons, the Everglades and our many other national parks and monuments (thank you, John Muir, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Jimmy Carter, Ken Burns and countless other American patriots) are all government-run public options.

These national treasures could have been “privatized,� and indeed private development corporations have tried in the past to take over, monopolize and “develop� each and every one of the public options mentioned above. They failed because the privatized desecration and destruction of our national public treasures — from the Grand Canyon to Social Security — would have been seen by the American people as unacceptable, unwarranted and un-American.

Conservatives nevertheless continue to argue that “free� private enterprise is always more efficient and effective in meeting the needs of the American people than are government-run programs. The weight of the evidence actually demonstrates quite the reverse. We owe the Great Depression of the 1930s and the current economic recession to the unfettered practices of unregulated or de-regulated private corporations and their executives who have exploited and profited from “ laissez-faire� capitalism, usually at the expense of the American people and their working families.

After the damage is done, government agencies and government-run public options often have to step in to save the day and provide the winning solutions.

Here, for example, is an actual comparison test case: Of the three major real estate mortgage financing enterprises that were founded as government-run entities, two of them, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were “privatized,� and have gone belly up. They had to be bailed out by government.

Meanwhile, in contrast, Ginnie Mae has remained government-run, and while operating in essentially the same real estate market as the other two, Ginnie Mae continues in the black and doing fine. How come? Answer: No profiteering, no self-dealing, no excessive executive pay and no excessive risk-taking. Just doing what the public option was designed and intended to do. How American!

This is the first part of a two-part column.

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and legal counsel of the World Health Organization.