obamacare

CONTENTION ONE: OBAMA CARESI define "Obamacare" as "Obama caring about people".Obama should care about people -- if he didn't, he'd be a bad president.We don't want a bad president, do we?What if he failed to care so badly that he, like, nuked everyone or something?!That's bad.Vote Aff!CONTENTION TWO: OBAMACARE WORKSI'd just like to establish that Obamacare is the same thing as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA [1].SUBPOINT A: EXPANDED INSURANCEThe ACA reduced the number of uninsured by 30% in one year. As the Health Policy Center states [2]:"The number of uninsured nonelderly adults fell by an estimated 10.6 million between September 2013 and September 2014 as the uninsurance rate fell from 17.7 percent to 12.4 percent—a drop of 30.1 percent. Most of the gain in coverage was among the low- and middle-income adults targeted by the ACA's Medicaid and Marketplace provisions. The uninsurance rate dropped 36.3 percent in states that implemented the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, compared with 23.9 percent in nonexpansion states; 54.7 percent of uninsured nonelderly adults lived in nonexpansion states in September 2014."Having uninsured people is bad for the taxpayer -- $43 billion bad. As USAToday states [3]:"The average U.S. family and their employers paid an extra $1,017 in health care premiums last year to compensate for the uninsured, according to a study to be released Thursday by an advocacy group for health care consumers. Families USA, which supports expanded health care coverage, found that about 37% of health care costs for people without insurance — or a total of $42.7 billion — went unpaid last year. That cost eventually was shifted to the insured through higher premiums, according to the group." And it's bad for the uninsured themselves. 45,000 people die from lack of insurance each year. As the Harvard Gazette states [4]:"The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993. “The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.” The study, which analyzed data from national surveys carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), assessed death rates after taking into account education, income, and many other factors, including smoking, drinking, and obesity. It estimated that lack of health insurance causes 44,789 excess deaths annually."This means that, as the ACA continues to reduce the number of uninsured in the United States, not only will more people get access to quality healthcare, but the total costs of healthcare and health insurance premiums will continue to decrease. SUBPOINT B: MORE CARRIERSWe all want a free market, right? (Pro states: Obamacare is a mockery of the so called free market[.]) But the problem is, before the ACA, in many areas, only a few carriers exist, creating an effective monopoly for locals. This prevents a truly free market from existing, because a free market needs competition; otherwise, it's just the same as if the government was the sole provider for a service. As McKinsey and Company state [5]:"In the 41 states releasing carrier exchange participation data, 57 new carriers6 will be entering the 2015 exchanges. In contrast, only 5 carriers from 2014 have withdrawn. Accordingly, the number of carriers will increase 26 percent over 2014."This allows citizens to escape monopoly and engage in a truly competetive market. In the long run, this more competetive market will also help reduce premiums and healthcare costs, again a benefit of the ACA.SUBPOINT C: NO PREMIUMS SPIKEA major attack on the ACA has been that premiums will skyrocket as insurers are forced to take on millions of new clients, millions with preexisting conditions. However, this has not occurred, with average premiums rising only 3% (well in line with previous years). As the Washington Post states [X]"In counties that are adding at least one insurer next year, premiums for the least expensive silver plan are rising 1 percent on average. Where the number of insurers is not changing, premiums are growing 7 percent on average. [....] In the federal marketplaces, the average county premium for the cheapest silver plan is rising 3 percent, from $266 to $273. But it is the inverse in counties where a new carrier is offering the cheapest plan. In those counties, premiums had been high, averaging $284, but they are dropping by an average of 3 percent, bringing them in-line with the national average, the analysis found. [....] In parts of southwest Georgia around Albany, which has only one insurer on the marketplace and is the second most expensive place in the nation to buy coverage this year, one of three new carriers, Coventry Health Care of Georgia, is offering the lowest silver plan. The price in those five counties will decline 21 percent for all ages, down to $363 for a 40-year-old. Still, that premium remains higher than much of the rest of the country."CONTENTION THREE: CON'S ARGUMENTSCon: Obamacare is a mockery of the so called free market,just like mandatory auto insurance, government's job is to make sure citizens are treated fairly and equally in a free market not to dictate mandatory insurance payments by regulating customers.I've addressed this point above.Furthermore, Con fails to provide any reason that governments shouldn't intervene -- Con just asserts that government has a certain "role".Con: im sure customers would prefer to be mandated to join a union and through collective bargaining and get insurance paid vacation, sick leave and better pay.That's irrelevant. It might be better to spend the money going to the ACA on colonizing the moon; that's not up for debate here. The only question in this debate is, does the ACA make the world a better or worse place, and not is there something better than the ACA.VOTE AFF!REFERENCES:[1] [2] http://hrms.urban.org...[3] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...[4] http://news.harvard.edu...[5] http://healthcare.mckinsey.com...[6] http://www.washingtonpost.com...