Universal Healthcare in The United States

AC then CP 1. The number of citizens in the United States without health insurance continues to rise each and every year. --> Lets look at a breakdown of the amount of people "without" healthcare: -> 9.9 Million are illegal, so under your system they probably wouldnt receive healthcare due to political infights, and political disadvantages. (U.S. Census) -> 14 -16 million people are eligible for medicare or medicaid but do not register. (CATO Institute) --> Refer to Counter-Plan in NC 2. If the United States would implement a universal health care system our problems would greatly be lessened. --> UHC = Rationing Association of American Physicians and Surgeons writes: A) England: In less than two years, there were more than half a million people on the waiting lists for hospitalization, while some forty thousand hospital beds were out of service because of a nurse shortage. The hospital shortage in Britain has become so acute that many mentally deficient and helpless, aged people are unable to secure institutional care. The only effective means of easing the shortage is to deny hospital admission to the old and chronically ill who cannot be discharged once they are admitted. In industrial centers, some British doctors have as many as 4,000 registered patients each. Such doctors can give each patient only three minutes per call-three minutes overall, for consultation, diagnosis, prescription, filling out official forms, and maintaining proper records for governmental inspectors. Twelve per cent of all British taxes go into the national health program. Thus the wretchedly inadequate "free" medical services in Britain actually cost the average Englishman considerably more than an American pays for the most expensive private health insurance and hospitalization. CATO Institute writes: B) Canada: According to the Fraser Institute, almost 900,000 Canadian patients are on the waiting list at any point in time. Among people with chronic renal failure, only half as many Canadians as Americans get dialysis. The American rate of coronary bypass surgeries is three or four times what it is in Canada, due to lack of available coverage and cost. C) Cancer Treatments: Among women who are diagnosed with breast cancer, only one fifth die in the United States, compared to one third in France and Germany, and almost half in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. Among men who are diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer than one fifth die in the United States, compared to one fourth in Canada, almost half in France, and more than half in the United Kingdom. D) Rationing Analysis: when the government has to make decisions about who is going to get care and who is not, they frequently choose the younger patient. Surveys of the elderly. show that senior citizens in the United States say it's much easier to get surgery, see doctors, see specialists, and enter hospitals, than say seniors in other countries. ^This is true because governments use a cost-benefit analysis to save costs, and saving a younger member of society will ultimately have an estimated better benefit than an elderly person. But rationing in general will happen in UHC programs because the government is influxing the system with X more people, but without compensating Y system with more doctors, programs etc. CP Instead of implementing a UHC System, the Federal government should, lift the ban on interstate commerce and competition between insurance companies. The reason healthcare costs increase s due to lack of competition. If X healthcare insurance provider is in NY, it can only sell plans within NY. This severely undermines competition between companies. Thus, the U.S. should test the CP first, before jumping into a UHC system which accesses the disadvantage of forms of rationing.