Access to and the distribution of health related services ought to be handled by the free market.

Brief Comments 1. You link a sentence I type, Then ask "how? " as if it is any sort of contribution. How about you read the next few sentences and lay real criticism of the point? I present a subject and then support it. It's as if I'm describing several topics to you and as I read the title of the topic you pipe in "What? How? " every time before I even say anything else. You do this and worse incredibly often. It is extremely odd. 2. No one is advocating that physicians become enslaved. This is not how single payer works. Insurance agencies negotiate with doctors all the time. The government insurance agency would do the same thing. Please stop pretending this is somehow a point in your favor. 3. To the judges and my opponent, Please note how none of the metrics I used were challenged in the slightest, Nor did he present any metrics of his own by which private healthcare is superior to single payer. All he did was ask for sources. I will certainly supply them, But know that if he actually had any counterarguments he would have used them. None of what I said is even arguable. These are well understood statistics by anyone who puts a modicum of effort into researching. To cite sources for every point I made would take tens of sources I'm simply slightly too lazy to dig up. I will do as much as I can, But if there's really one he knows is wrong perhaps he'd have a source to prove it wrong and it'd be easy for me to address the points of contention. 4. One small point I hadn't brought up in my R2 that I should've but forgot is that currently businesses are setup to where they offer health insurance through their business. This enslaves people to their job. Switching jobs or quitting removes their insurance and many people would die from that. On top of that, Private businesses have to spend time and money to offer their employees health insurance, And most employees are financially forced into taking what their business offers. There is nothing free market about this, And it seems both of us should agree that it shouldn't exist. Single payer allows citizens the freedom to switch jobs as they'd like and as the market dictates without fear of their lives. It reduces what employers have to pay and time employers have to spend as well. It's beneficial for all parties. 5. When insurance is concerned "quality" means that everything necessary is covered. We have plenty of people who are underinsured now. These people have "bad" insurance. Single payer is 100% quality insurance. There is no better insurance. Insurance isn't a market where quality would decrease with government monopoly. Again, Government wouldn't control healthcare. I'll address the rest in my R4. If my opponent stops copy pasting my entire argument needlessly perhaps he'll have more room to supply his own words. My Rebuttal to Pro's R2: 1. No one is trying to force doctors to treat anyone. This is fallacious. No one is saying healthcare is or will be free. This is fallacious. Your entire first "opening argument" section is you shadow boxing. Fighting entities that don't exist. 2. The AMA None of what you said supports your opinion that the AMA is limiting the number of graduates in America. The AMA may have had a hand in shutting down schools, But their reasoning was that they were pumping out substandard doctors. On top of that, The AMA predicted a surplus of doctors some number of years ago, But in the past several decades have reversed their position and encouraged enrollment as much as possible. On top of all that though, The lack of doctors is not due to any of this. Any number of people can graduate medical school. That isn't the issue. The issue is residencies. In order to practice on their own doctors have to go through residencies. If more of these are funded and permitted, There will be more doctors. The fault then is not with the AMA but the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Far as I'm aware, There is no monopoly on licensing standards. The AMA's membership covers about 30% of the doctors in America, Give or take. You seem to have no idea about what the AMA is, What its current position on students are, Or what is actually bottle-necking doctors. If only the AMA had a hand in this we'd agree that it should be changed, But it still wouldn't mean the AMA should be eliminated. Either way, This isn't defense in your favor. Without the AMA we'd have more medical schools pumping out substandard doctors who would then result in the public not trusting doctors even more, More medical malpractice, Et cetera. Your position seems to be that the market is somehow improved by us having no standards and giving anyone a medical license. This is not how colleges work. Why not give everyone an electrical engineering degree? Let's get rid of all standards for bridge building engineers. I'm sure we'd have a greater supply of engineers and thus cheaper bridges! This argument doesn't even belong in a econ 101 classroom. Supply and Demand doesn't include quality in the graph. To conclude this section, You seem to have no idea what the AMA is or does. Perhaps your information should include some from this century? Your chart doesn't prove the AMA has a direct hand in anything, Nor is it justification to abolish all standards set by them. (1, 2) 3. Drug patents No investor or businessman will ever invest money into the production of new drugs if they are not allowed to recoup their losses. You can argue for capping profits at a percentage of the investment. Pretending new drugs will be invented out of the goodness of people's hearts is laughable, And entirely ignorant of how economics works. Capping profits is reasonable. On top of that, This is an argument for my position. With single payer, The government negotiates from the strongest possible position as far as drug prices. They can offer drug companies a fair price. Companies aren't forced to sell to them, But they are forced to give reasonable rates, And can expect reasonable returns for their investment. Otherwise, The country won't have their products. This has been shown in every country to adopt single payer. On top of that, There are even some suggestions that patents should be threatened if businessmen gouge too much. (3) The only system that will work is allowing people who invent medicines reasonable profits, While opening up their medication to be produced by the free market and sold to the citizens of different governments via negotiations in price with their collective demand as a bargaining chip (single payer). 4. FDA Let me get this straight, Your argument is that instead of a government agency held accountable by the people to extensively test medications that they have no expertise on to protect them, We should have the equivalent of amazon product reviews. Great. Psychology tells us that humans are subject to all sorts of biases. Some people think by having water thrown at them from an elderly man in a pretty dress cures their cancer. Some people drink warm water and think it cures their illnesses. Homeopathy is what you get when you subject medicine to the whims of untrained biased humans. Not to mention that many product reviews are bought and paid for by the companies who sell the products. How many fake reviews do you think are on Yelp or Amazon? How many companies pay for good reviews? You cite that the FDA failed in a few cases. Sure. Some medicines don't have an effect on the person, But they do have an effect on their child. This is something they can't really test for. Some have effects after long periods of time. You citing that they eventually pulled the products from the shelf is not proof that the FDA is not effective. It is proof that it is not perfect, And without them regulating even more by requiring pregnant women take them or requiring the medicine to be tested over decades in trials, They could not possibly stop some of this medication. On top of that, Some number of those were only on the shelf for a year or two if not less. Some were approved nearly a century ago. Your suggestion is that we replace this agency with Amazon reviews which can and are doctored and paid for. Do you want to see what the effects of just ONE such product being sold by people with a profit motive? I doubt you'll read even a portion of it, But here you go. (4) You offer no sources to even suggest that amazon product reviews have an efficiency anywhere near the FDA. If the cost of having knowledge of each product's effects from teams of doctors and test is several billion per product that is fine. The world will keep spinning for thousands of years more. These products aren't going anywhere. For each one we extensively test and that each other country extensively tests humans gain a better understanding of drugs and our interactions with them, Resulting in better drugs in the end. Out of the 4 potential outcomes you link, 3 of them are terrible. On top of that, Any company that develops a product they think will sell will not be bothered by the FDA costs. The drugs will still be made regardless. Their money will be recouped. This is not an issue and we all benefit from it. To conclude, All you seem to have done is point out one or two things that could be improved in the system we currently have. Eliminating the FDA would be a great idea but supply and demand aren't all that matters. Quality matters. Your solution to this problem is laughable at best, And lacking in morality at least. The AMA isn't the limiter on doctors. Your point against them is invalid, And wouldn't even warrant its destruction if it were true. Your "solution" to drug prices is the most absurd economic position that would only work if we wanted no new drugs. With how antibiotic resistant bacteria are an increasing problem, This is a medically absurd position as well. May your thoughts be clear, -Thoht Sources in my Profile. Links are tedious to post in debates atm.