Comment by jjk166

The other way around would be having public options except where explicitly forbidden. The existence of a public option does not forbid private options. For example the existence of the USPS does not forbid UPS or Fedex or Amazon from operating delivery services, which may be preferable for many customers. But the public option guarantees that a certain level of service is available to anyone and makes it impossible for any private entity to secure a monopoly. It also is very sensible in cases of natural monopoly (power plants, international airports, prisons, wastewater treatment centers) where there's never going to be any meaningful competition that the government should own and operate the monopoly.