Quarantines have been implemented by governments for as long as there has been sufficient understanding to know that it prevents epidemic. What you do recommend? Voluntary self-quarantine and monitoring has a poor track record over the past week alone. Just keep on doing what we're doing and hope that it ends soon? I don't see that this is the trajectory, myself.
No one in the US has been infected who was not working in direct care of an Ebola patient and who was following Ebola protocols while treating the patient.
If those facts change on a wide spread basis, self monitoring is better than Obama imposed quarantine.