The public option PLUS private insurers reminds me strongly of the last administration's effort to privatize Social Security. On the premise of SS going broke, it wanted to funnel more money out of it.

And now they postulate that if the American people were presented with the option of federally funded medical care, private insurers would go out of business. It doesn't seem to work that way.

The analogy of the US Post Office competing with FedEx and UPS, et al, is a good one. The US Postal Service, being federally funded and therefore cheaper, should command an allegiance from the American people that would drive competitors out of business. But it isn't true.