This healthcare proposal is better than any healthcare proposal my opponent can come up with.

First, I will attack my opponent's proposal; then, I will show how my opponent's criticisms are based only on fearmongering. OVERALL My opponent's proposals will not lower medical costs because they do not target the root. 1) Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines. While this may lower insurance premiums ever so slightly, it does not lower medical costs. Medical costs remain the same, and insurance premiums must necessarily be above them. Therefore, the individual is no better off, especially when his other proposals are considered. 2) Government Handouts I am often quite disgusted to read these proposals from Republicans pretending to support economic freedom. This tax credit subsidizes the behaviour of not paying for insurance. The individual is given incentive to not buy insurance. Why would anyone want this? This proposal's intention is to get people to buy insurance, and yet the moment these individuals do, they are cut off of the subsidy. This proposal doesn't even meet its goal! It simply grants free money to anyone who asks for it, given that they don't have health insurance. The natural result: welfare mothers will avoid purchasing health insurance to recieve a subsidy. From an economic perspective, this subsidy steals money from producing Americans and gives it to welfare mothers and the burgeoisie. 3) Government Regulations A more simple step would be enforcing current fraud laws. However, fraud is not the problem. Individuals are choosing not to read contracts, and are suffering the consequences. All that my opponent's proposal does is make advertising impossible. (Imagine the narrator of an ad having to read through everything covered and not covered by each offer mentioned!) The thing though is, actually, individuals are quite aware of what is and what isn't covered because they sign a contract. There is no fraud, only laziness. What my opponent's proposition will do is prevent insurance marketing, eliminating consumer information entirely. ON TO MY PROPOSALS 1) Deregulate insurance companies My opponent has conceded this point. 2) End Occupational Licensure "Are you mad?" Ad Hominem http://fallacyfiles.org... My opponent presents three objections to my second proposal. First, he believes it will lower the quality of healthcare. In actuality, it will allow specialization. The midwife will no longer be required to have 10 years of medical school over the endocrine system and brain surgery. Instead, his/her training will be able to be focused on whatever field he wishes to focus on. The individual will be free to pursue a medical career without prohibitive medical school fees. On a different note, there are more efficient ways of education than schooling. On-the-job training and internship is much more efficient and longlasting in the worker's memory than schooling. In fact, the "knowledge and skills learned here are impossible to learn in the classroom" [http://www.campusgrotto.com...]. Second, my opponent objects saying that children have some sort of natural right to a birth by a licensed medical provider. Wherefrom comes this right? Was every birth up til the institution of medical licensing a crime? What of the births in a car on the way to the hospital? Are those criminal? Third, my opponent asserts that mistakes would actually increase, and that this will result in an increased tax burden. First, the individual who goes to a shady man on the street to get eye surgery from a guy with a rusty spoon deserves to be blind. Second, in order for individuals to want to pay for healthcare, they have to be confident in their operator. The medicalcare provider, assuming he wants to earn a living, must convince the consumer that he/she is a better option than the guy next door. Lastly, assuming the existing system of liability, the taxpayer would not be responsible for the mistakes: the operator would. So, there is no tax concern. This liability will further persuade the common man to not try to perform eye surgeries with a rusty spoon. 3) Ending government medicinal regulations The approval system would not cease to exist without government action, as my opponent insists. Being liable for fraud and wanting to keep up consumer confidence will force companies to be confident that there will be no mistake. This testing will either be performed by the individual companies or by specialized testing companies, whichever the market finds more efficient. Whoever performs this function must necessarily be the cheapest and most thorough in testing, making for a more effective, cheaper, and efficient system than at present. This is most certainly a better system than a corrupt and inefficient FDA. CONCLUSION: My opponent's solution does not meet its goals. It does not cut costs. It lessens consumer information. My solution cuts costs, both medicinal and labourous. It allows for a more efficient and effective medical market. Thank you.