The United States should adopt Universal Healthcare

PRO R1: More people get more affordable coverage Contrary to PRO’s initial claims, Taiwanese UHC is filled to the brim with problems and goes hand and hand what I’ve continually stressed about government incompetence. Naturally, PRO has no choice but come up with excuses for Taiwan’s documented abject unmitigated failures. (1) He tells that they are “slow at adopting technology.” However, if you read his Wikipedia link sourcing this, the words “citation needed” is next to this baseless assertion. (2) He says they have “a low doctor-to-population ratio resulting in too many patients depending on too few doctors." I agree with this. In fact, I discussed this in my previous round. There are a limited amount of doctors because the Taiwanese government discourages medical students from practicing in a number of fields due to insufficient compensation.[1] (3) He says “there is no system to regulate systematic reporting of clinical performance, patient outcomes and adverse events.” This is another unsourced assertion from his Wikipedia link. Moreover, if that is indeed the case, Taiwan’s inability to pay for the system as well as having to resort to all sorts of cost-cutting measures would explain this. PRO was practically jumping up and down about the greatness of the Taiwanese UHC in R2, but now seeks to distance himself from it. What we can take away from the Taiwan example is that although UHC has some positive effects, these effects come at a number of costs that make it a bad deal all the way around—either through rationing resources or stifling innovation. This is why PRO rushes to hang his hat on richer countries such as the Netherlands. Lets talk a bit about their healthcare. Incidentally, although they aren’t running free market healthcare, they’ve used a lot of free market principles. As of their reform in 2005, “providers were no longer guaranteed income, but obliged to negotiate and compete over price and quality of care . . . this competition motivated hospitals to expand services such as neurosurgery and radiation therapy.”[Ex8]Hmm, negotiate and compete. Words I’ve been stressing throughout my argument. The Dutch have the right idea to deregulate. Unfortunately, where they miss the boat at is setting price controls. Basically, “because improvements in health care are extremely capital-intensive, price controls make it difficult for innovators to profit from making the substantial up-front investments in research and development.” As a result, their market stagnates “technologically and . . . lag[s] in the diffusion of access to cutting-edge surgical procedures and drug treatments, which are expensive initially.”[Ex9] PRO R2: Universal Health Care does save and prolong lives PRO’s overall defense here is largely irrelevant since I’m not defending the current laughable healthcare system and am actually calling for change. In defense of UHC, he cites a fundamentally flawed study that concludes that 45,000 people in the United States die on a yearly basis due to the lack of health insurance, disregarding that his own study did not by its own admission even “measure the effect of gaining or losing coverage.”[Ex2] PRO R3: Universal Health Care does benefit economic productivity Like I said above, PRO didn’t really disprove anything regarding the wait list argument. Based on unreliable data, his response is basically “Well America is worse!” In the last round, I pointed out that PRO’s conclusions are based on insufficient data and I stand by that. Here, he’s yet again citing the same study concluding that workers with health insurance are more productive. However, nothing has changed since the last round. His study deals with health insurance. We’re not simply discussing having health insurance UHC; government regulated healthcare isn’t just a matter of people having health insurance. It’s a matter of rationing resources and dictating how the healthcare market is going to function. If PRO were to simply say “everyone should get health insurance”, he’d have a point. But as it stands, his data is insufficient. Moreover, PRO fails to overcome issues specific to the US. In the last round, I asked how much money the federal government would be losing having to deal with lawsuits in regards to incompetence like that I cited from Canada and the UK? PRO didn’t answer this question and with good reason. The US is a deeply litigious society.[ Ex3] We don’t think twice about suing; it’s our second nature. PRO’s asking us to make the federal government responsible for 1/6 of our economy. Who do you think people are going to sue when their kids or parents are dying in wait lines and when the buck no longer stops at private companies? We’re talking a massive burden on our federal courts and a great burden on the federal revenue. PRO R4: Universal Health Care does create jobs PRO’s comparison between spending in the US and other countries was indeed fallacious. He’s now telling us that his comparison was not meant to be taken literally but “to put America's ungodly spending on health care in perspective.” Problem is that I added perspective. Yes, the US does spend more on healthcare than the national budgets of three countries combined, but that’s on account of us having so much more to account for. We also have a larger population than France [Ex4], Canada [Ex5], and the UK [Ex6] combined [Ex7]. PRO says the US spends $8,745 per capita on health care. However, I addressed the problems with these comparisons in the previous rounds. For example, certain illnesses, health problems and injuries are more likely to occur here than in other countries. PRO says I never rebutted his evidence that UHC creates jobs. The only evidence he presented on the issue was the faulty comparison between the amount US and other countries spend on healthcare. Based on this faulty reasoning, Pro concluded that “With a universal health care system, companies would keep that money and would have a healthier and more productive work force, along with other economic benefits.” I’m saying that if the idea is to get the private sector to keep more money, surely my idea is better as I’m talking about dismantling decades of needless healthcare regulations and making healthcare a true free market entity. Part of that would involve getting rid of the tax incentives in place for companies to offer their employees healthcare benefits. But in exchange, employees not only get paid more money, but have more money to spend on a healthcare system with highly competitive prices. Remember, we’re following PRO’s logic of letting the private sector keep more money. In PRO’s words, “it’s a win/win.” CON 1) Health Care as a Commodity In the last round, I gave two examples of free market healthcare in our modern society. Cosmetics and laser eye surgery. Clearly, PRO is incorrect to presume inelastic demand in healthcare. Don’t get me wrong. If we’re talking about life or death urgent care situations, demand is indeed inelastic---people will generally go whatever the price is. It’s certainly a massive stretch though to suggest that this is the case for all healthcare. If, for example, I have a heart attack, I’m not going to negotiate on who can give me the best deal on treating a heart attack. I’m gonna go to the nearest healthcare provider and get my heart attack treated. If, however, it’s something more mundane, like hip replacement surgery, I reasonably have the capacity to find the provider with the best deal or service. Just a few months back, my dentist told me I needed a root canal. He didn’t perform it personally, but told me about other dentists who did. Within a day, I decided to go with a dentist with whom I believed offered the fairest price and least painful procedure. That’s how a market works. CON 2) Free Market Health Care in regards to lower cost and better quality PRO is basically repeating what he just said above. Problem is that most healthcare treatment isn’t pursued due to impending death, thus his argument about cosmetics applies to a lot of things, like hip replacement surgery, root canals, contraception, gastric bypasses, etc. By PRO’s logic, none of those are healthcare. Cosmetics and Laser eye surgery are healthcare. Both have proven successful under pure free market principles. CON 3) Government incompetence and UHC Every government does have its shortcomings. However, the point of this contention isn’t to affirm that the United States government is flawed, but to advocate that healthcare in the US would be in better hands were it to be placed under free market principles. We either hand healthcare over an entity that has proven itself incompetent in matters outside of what it was designed to regulate or we hand it over to a system that has created the largest economy in all of human history. Really seems like a simple choice to me. PRO says I didn’t address his claims of UHC reducing healthcare spending. I believe I did when he cited a 2009 study conducted by the Obama administration(Con R3). PRO dropped my points on this, so its moots. He also disputes Social Security and Medicare going bankrupt. Nope, they are indeed going bankrupt.[Ex10] Closing Statements Much has been discussed throughout this debate, but keep in mind that PRO's entire rational for rejecting Free market Healthcare boils down to this notion that there's no evidence that it works and that all healthcare demand is inelastic. Ideas I thoroughly crushed. PRO really has no choice here but to continue hanging his hat on the inelasticity of healthcare argument. Because even PRO knows that the power of government oversight is all too often no match for the power of the free market. UHC has some benefits, but the aren't worth the costs and we certainly have an infinitely more viable option. Vote CON! Sources: http://pastebin.com...