Nationalizing Health care

I will start off telling you about the current status quo of our healthcare. The healthcare system has been shot through with GOVERNMENT interventions already. For example, the HMO act of 1973, our brilliant minds in congress decided that we should force employers to offer Health insurance to all citizens working for them, well what happened next? The costs for medicine sky rocketed, and i will proceed to inform you why the costs of medicine skyrocketed. In the years before the HMO act of 1973 Medical firms competed like any other free market firm to set their prices very low so they could make money, naturally people shop for the lowest prices possible. But... with the introduction of the HMO act of 1973 people no longer had incentive to shop around and look for the best deals now that their insurance companies dealt with it. Now lets think about this for a moment... with no incentive of the buyer what do you think the Medical firms did in response? Instead of charging the MINIMUM of sold medical goods they reversed and charged the MAXIMUM to put more money in their pockets. So, what you our actually looking at is a government shot healthcare system. Now let me ask you this question.. with government intervention failing as awefully as it did would you now support the government taking healthcare completely over? My opponent-"The US spends the most on health care and has about the same health as Cuba who spends very little on its health care." I personally think cuba is a very bad comparrision to make with the very low living standards of the average cuban who finds themselves trying to flee to the U.S.. Despite what you may think the average Cuban unhealthier than the average American. http://www.canf.org... My opponent- "Employer forced health care is putting a strain on firms. In the current economic status, this is detrimental." I agree with you if it wasn't for that darn government and their interventionists policies. My opponent- "A universal health care system will benefit firms. By making it so firms are not forced to pay health care for the employees, there will be increased capital for the firms to invest. More importantly is the fact that, in the current economic times, putting less strain on the firms is essential for the US to rise out of the recession." This may be partially true it will take the burden off of business and redirect it to the tax payer but why increase taxes on our already suffering economy so needlessly? Why not abolish insurance companies basically invented by the government through HMO act and directly replace it with the old system of competetion of healthcare firms? It is a win win situation. My opponent- " universal health care will increase the overall health of America. Because there is health care for everyone, people are more likely to go to the doctor. Thus increasing the health." People will most likely see doctors? The government will force you to go to the doctor. This can already be seen in the foster system the government forces kids to see the doctor, most of the time for something that isn't serious. I don't know about you but maybe I don't want to go to forced check ups. There is a great deal of us who don't like going to the doctors. The overall health of our citizens will not increase infact they will get worse if you want to see the facts about our future healthcare just look at our veterans treatment. Curently there is just a few millions of veterans on the government control plan and it is not a pretty picture first off often times our veterans dont receive the proper medicine they need when they need it, the government is often late with the hospitals payments thus a shortage of medicine occurs, their are reports of people claiming of the bad conditions in which these veterans must deal with in these hospitals such as lack of proper attention and other reports of veterans being put on broken beds. Is this the Healthcare you want for our country? My opponent- "A universal health care system will help the economy of the US. For one, as I have already stated, it will help firms. Also, because it reduces operational costs, it also benefits doctors financially." Since when does raising taxes help the economy? No, firms will not benefit since their will be less money in the hands of consumers. Also, the average American doctor is paid much higher then the Average Canadian Doctor. So the idea of a government ran program will increase dcotors payment simply doesn't work. My opponent-"Japan, Canada, and France all have universal health care systems. Statistically, all these countries have a lower per capita health cost and the people are healthier than the US." Firstly you would be surprised by how france runs their universal healthcare the french not only tax the hell out of their citizens but even that is not enough. 92% of France's citizens still require Health insurance requiring them to dish out thousands of Euros to not only their government but also its insurance. Is that the way to go? Japan on the other hand has been going through a recession since the 90s until now is the cost of the healthcare not there? I dont think so. The health of the Japanese is high but that is due to their healthy eating habits and to their culture. The Japanese feel it is shameful to be sick and many japanese have very healthy eating habits to prevent them from becoming sick. The health of the japanese has actually gone down over the years despite their "great health plan" Canada? Their docotrs are constantly running across borders to seek better salaries. The waiting list can last an entire 9 months just to get checked out in a country of 30 million. Is that our future? Recently the obama administration has cut the VA (Veterans Administration) so the government can fork out less money to our sick veterans. What makes you think they wont cut ours?