universal healthcare

Okay Moral. Unresponsive. There isn't a system in the world that doesn't ration, and there isn't a system in the world that doesn't ration based on 'how much money you make'. Extend my argument through. My opponent fails his own 'morals' burden where "no one should ever die just because they cant afford it."--this outcome is unavoidable. Econ. You mistreat basically my entire argument. I don't claim obesity is the reason the US spends more on healthcare, I provide evidence that it is a unique reason we spend more on healthcare. In other words, that the US can't be well-compared to foreign countries. You make a claim about universal care leading to lower obesity rates. Considering the drivers of obesity--sedentary lifestyles, suburbia, fast food, etc.--this claim seems ridiculous on its face. Moreover, you provide no evidence to support your claim. You then bring up the perennial 'preventive care' fallacy. Most prevention is individual behavior: eat healthy, exercise. Or, CMS regularly funds efforts to increase chronic care patients' compliance with drug, etc., regimens. They haven't yet found a method that can give consistent success [1]. I.e. CMS literally paid a company to call chronic care patients daily to remind them to take medications, measure weight, etc. If the patients had complied, CMS would have seen $millions$ in savings. Instead, it lost million$ [2,3]. You then go on to suggest the US healthcare system, (presumably pre-PPACA) is not 'good'. I agree. I don't have to defend the status quo. What I'm arguing is that single-payer can only exacerbate our problems. On the growth in costs, your argument first, has no evidence, and second argues it can be entirely explained by recession. This is a fallacy for two reasons: 1. Europe and the US went through the recession; 2. the trend encompasses decades of cost growth. Please don't strawman, it's rude. Impact: single-payers have seen costs increase more quickly than has the US. Let's see. Now you go on to ignore one of the most important arguments. If a government spending on healthcare can be expected to deliver huge gains independent of external considerations, it would have already done so for the US. *WE SPEND MORE PUBLIC MONEY ON HEALTHCARE THAN THE COUNTRIES YOU'RE SUGGESTING WE EMULATE*. It was important to stress this point. Given this, we have no rationale for single payer. You ask me to respond to your 'points'. I've done so in aggregate--most have no impact--, but I guess I can go line by line. Pro-life Christians: Irrelevant Jesus: Irrelevant 'It would actually benefit them': Cross apply--single payers are seeing more cost growth, cost rations, ergo TURN, it actually harms. Employer/Employment harms: Non-unique. We could eliminate these harms without adopting single-payer. Pre-existing conditions: Non-unique, we could reinsure insurers. This essentially eliminates insurer incentive to cherry-pick. Prevention saves money: Frequent claim, completely untrue. In aggregate, healthcare preventive services will cost more money than they save [4,5,6] Small businesses: non unique Foreign companies: non unique CBS poll: And a third of Americans think aliens are visiting earth. Who cares? People are wrong. Appeal to the masses = fallacy. Military health system: subsidized, homogeneous population. Congressional health insurance: Expensive. We have to ration somewhere, there is no panacea. Better solutions: transparent pricing information, less subsidy and more direct payment--i.e. people should directly pay for the care they receive and not use insurance, especially for routine care. [1] http://content.healthaffairs.org... [2] http://content.healthaffairs.org... [3] http://circoutcomes.ahajournals.org... [4] http://www.cbo.gov... [5] http://www.nejm.org... [6] http://www.washingtonpost.com...