The Obama Care bill should NOT have been passed

Responses, again in the order in which they were previously addressed: 1. Note that Pro agrees that voting along by ideology and along political lines is both common and not concerning. He is concerned by the "closed door" meetings. This is another common practice in the legislative process. It should also be of little concern to the public, since the final result of the political maneuvering is available to the public for viewing (the bill itself). 2. This bill does not cover those who choose not to pay. There is not much that can be done about this point, short of making our system a single-payer system. Does Pro advocate a single-payer system? People will choose to opt out of insurance and choose to instead pay the fine. This seems to be more of their problem, since this bill provides them with ACCESS to insurance. If they choose to eschew this access, then that is their problem. You might say that some people choose not opt out because they cannot afford it. This is also not a concern because people who cannot afford it are not subject to the fine, and have subsidies available to make the insurance affordable. This information is available on the link I provided in Round One. (http://www.csmonitor.com...) It can also be found in this summary of the healthcare bill. (http://www.cbsnews.com...) 3. We could get into a separate debate on the merits of the student loan addition to this bill. To save space, I will not argue that here. Instead, I will ask Pro whether this point is enough, by itself, to warrant not passing the health care bill? 4. It will cause an increase in patients, sure (this is one of the main points of the reform). However, nothing in this bill suggests that the number of doctors will remain static. Medicare and Medicaid are not the sole sources of money for doctors. The increase in patients should make up for the funding lost to medicare and medicaid cuts. 5. The special deals are an unfortunate side affect of our political system. It is quite commonplace. The bright side is that they usually do not last forever. This is the point that I was trying to make in round one, that Pro did not address. Although the special exceptions do exist currently, they can be removed in later years. These exemptions wee necessary for the bill to pass, but can be removed in later years. 6. Pro breaks down number six into a few more points. They are as follows: a. Opposition to the individual mandate. b. Regulations on what insurance companies can and cannot cover. c. The bill provides for rationing of care, especially later in life. Responses: a. The individual mandate is necessary in order to ensure that the system is adequately funded. If people are allowed to opt out without penalty then the new (and very necessary) regulations on the insurance industry could very well kill the insurance industry. If insurance companies are forced to insure everyone, then a large number of unhealthy people will purchase their insurance. Unhealthy people will have more hospital visits, costing the insurance companies money. If people are allowed to opt out, then the majority of the insurance industry's customers will be unhealthy (because healthy people will likely opt out). If most of their customers cost them money, the industry will quickly go broke. b. The regulations now being placed on the insurance industry have been needed for a long time. I ask my opponent to cite specific regulations to which he objects. c. Pro objects to rationing health care. However, he fails to mention the fact that health care is already rationed through private insurance companies. (http://patients.about.com...). The main difference between government rationing of health care and insurance company rationing of health care is that government rationing is not motivated by profit. --------- Conclusion The health care bill does have a few problems. This cannot be avoided. There are problems with any piece of legislation, many are unforeseeable. However, I argue that these problems can be fixed later, as we come up on the problems. When something turns out to be a problem later, we can fix that provision at that time. (ran out of space again)