The United States ought to guarantee universal health care for its citizens.

Universal Health Care Affirmative I affirm the resolution, "Resolved: The United States ought to guarantee universal health care for its citizens." I offer the following definitions for clarity within the round. Ought: "Used to express justice, moral rightness, or the like" Source: Dictionary.com Guarantee:" Something that assures a particular outcome or condition" Source: Dictionary.com Universal: "applicable everywhere or in all cases" Source: Dictionary.com Health care: "The field concerned with the maintenance or restoration of the health of the body or mind." Source: Dictionary. Com Citizen: "a native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection." Source: Dictionary.com United States: defined by a country of central and northwest North America with the Coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This is relevant to the round as this is not a debate over other countries and their healthcare policy rather what is better for the U.S. Source: thefreedictionary.com Wellbeing: a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous. Source: Princeton.edu My value for this round is "utilitarianism", according to Jeremy Bentham stated it is derived from the rule of utility that the good is the whatever brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. My Criterion is economy which is defined as the wealth and resources of a country or region, esp. in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services. This is the Best criterion to consider in this debate as we are deciding what is best for this nation. A country cannot function without a good economy and without a good economy my value and every other value would be useless as we could not afford to make these things a possibility. Contention 1: Universal Healthcare would be cheaper for the individual. Sub point a universal health care would decrease the administrative costs. Abolishing and prohibiting private healthcare would have a huge financial impact on the individuals in the US. Financially, providing every citizen healthcare would decrease the administrative costs. Physicians for a National Health Program explain, "In a single payer system, all hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers would bill one entity for their services. This alone reduces administrative waste greatly, and saves money, which can be used to provide care and insurance to those who currently don"t have it." Money would also be saved in the timing of the care. When individuals fear hospital bills, they resist seeking treatment until the absolute latest time, resulting in much higher costs for everyone involved. Universal healthcare ensures all people would have access to palliative care, which, according to Diane Meier of Mt. Sinai Medical Center "translates into better quality care and cost savings. Taken to a national scale, palliative care could save $6 billion annually." Sub point B the cost of Medicare is going up Universal Healthcare would cut costs for the state. According to CBO long term budget outlook there is a growing trend. CBO states that in 2009 we were spending 5.3% of our income it also predicts that by 2035 we will be paying 10% of our income. Contention 2: Universal healthcare would help sustain the work force. If we had universal healthcare everyone would be cared for. Putting people back into the workforce and the more people we have in the workforce the better our economy would be. But without universal healthcare every time someone who cannot afford it gets injured or sick. They drop out of the workforce. There for the business"s they work for lose money because that person is not there to help bring in the profit causing the country to also lose money. In 2011 in Washington State there were 64000 claims for workers composite. By accepting universal healthcare we can quickly and efficiently deal with these workers and put more workers in the work force. Contention 3: premiums are going up because of the uninsured Sub point a- Insured people are paying for the people who can"t afford health care through taxes. According to a CNN report, 16.3% of US citizens don"t have health Insurance. Having so many people lacking insurance cause"s healthcare costs to tax-payers to skyrocket. When an uninsured person cannot afford care, that owed money doesn"t just go away- hospitals have to raise overhead prices to cover it or the charge can be passed off to the federal government, who has to regain the loss through taxes. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, "Thirty-seven percent of the uninsured"s health care costs, totaling $43 billion, was "uncompensated care" "i.e., care received by uninsured patients but not paid for by them or by a third party on their behalf. Congress found that this cost-shifting increases the average premium for insured families by more than $1000 per year." This cost increase is due to the nature of the healthcare the uninsured seek. Uninsured individuals often wait until emergency before going to a hospital for fear of the price-tag associated with the care. This means that more drastic and risky services are necessary at the point at which the patient needs attention immediately, and, as emergency rooms cannot turn someone on the brink of death away, they must be treated. After treatment, when the person can"t pay, the hospital has to swallow the cost, resulting in that $1,000 increase for everyone else. Sub point B: The current system is costly and ineffective. The United States has been found by the World Health Organization to be the 37th best system of health care in the world. The problem is we"re number one for healthcare expenses. We are paying "more than twice as much as relatively rich European countries such as France, Sweden and Britain that provide universal health care," according to the New York Times. Americans are funneling a lot of money into a system that doesn"t work, making us one of the least efficient systems in the developed world.