Novice Tournament R1: The United States should implement a system of Single Payer health care.

Thank you.The United States is mostly a free market systemThe majority of my opponent’s rebuttal seems to hinge around one idea - that the United States somehow does not have a free market system, and thus all of my attacks on the status quo aren’t really an attack on the free market, but instead on the United States’ version of quasi-single payer. However, this is a deeply flawed argument. First of all, only 19% of Americans receive coverage through Medicare [1]. Where does my opponent think that the other 81% receive coverage? The fact of the matter is, with some regulations and checks on the system, the United States operates under a system dominated by private insurance companies. To deny this is to deny fact. Under the Affordable Care Act, citizens can even shop through an online marketplace, viewing competing plans and choosing the plan that offers the lowest price [2]. This is a de facto free marketplace. My opponent’s claims that, “the middle class has heavily-subsidized private health insurance,” and that “we have single-payer health care for the elderly and for the poor,” while fair claims, do not invalidate the US as having a predominantly free market system.Insurance Companies inhibit growthAs my opponent acknowledges, empirical data unequivocally shows that nations with Single Payer have higher doctor satisfaction rates than those without Single Payer. This means that nations with Single Payer have increased incentive to become a doctor, ultimately increasing the number of doctors and the quality of said doctors. My opponent’s argument about Switzerland is erroneous. Switzerland has one of the highest doctor satisfaction rates in the world and it also has one of the most pervasive forms of Single Payer in the world [3]. With regards to entrepreneurship, it has been established that private insurance companies bear responsibility for managed care and bureaucracy. Single Payer streamlines the system and makes it more efficient through global budgets and a single IT system [1].Single Payer is ideal for autonomyHere, my opponent's rebuttal seems to suggest that HMOs and insurance companies don’t exist under a “free marketplace.” Perhaps I misunderstood the argument, but if not, my opponent needs to elaborate on this. As I explained in my Round 3 case, private insurance companies are very much the alternative to Single Payer - and they are in charge of health planning, health management, and doctor referrals through their “gatekeepers,” which restrict individual choice. Single Payer, on the other hand, offers free choice of doctor, stronger doctor-patient relationships, and a system that is far more popular than the US system. With regards to rationing, my opponent argues that, “rationing leads to long delays for some types of operations, or never doing it at all.” Be that as it may, healthcare inevitably must be rationed under any system, as there is not unlimited care to go around. The question is, do we want private, for-profit insurance companies to ration our care, thus taking exorbitant profits and denying coverage to certain people, or do we want the government to ration our care? In the US, or any free market system for that matter, the rationing occurs through the denying of care to the poor, and the redistribution of wealth to high administrative costs, ridiculous profits, and inefficiency. In a system with Single Payer such as Canada, rationing is reduced because inefficiency is reduced, and cost savings are implemented. Health care is a moral issue. And we should make it more equitable, which Single Payer does.The wait times argument is flawedMy opponent commits gross hyperbole with her description of wait times in Canada. The average wait time is very close to wait specialists call reasonable in Canada [4]. Yes, wait times are slightly higher than in Canada than in the US, but again, that is due to a decision made by the Canadian people to be fiscally conservative, not by a flaw in Single Payer itself. If Canadians chose to spend as much as we do on Healthcare, there waiting times would virtually be eliminated [4]. Then my opponent claims that “Canada is not providing universal health care because it blocks access to it by increasing the wait times for services dramatically.“ This is a complete misunderstanding of my argument. Just because wait times are slightly higher in Canada does not mean that people don’t have access to care. Again, Canada is not “blocking access to care;” it still has universal coverage for every citizen, plus wait times what the majority of experts call “reasonable.”Plus, I have established that the differences in wait times have little effect on health outcomes overall. The data is very clear that, regardless of wait times, Canada has a better life expectancy than the US, a lower infant mortality rate than the US, and better health outcomes for the majority of cancers and diseases [5]. Unless my opponent can establish an empirical link between wait times and health outcomes and disprove the plethora of statistics that I have provided, thus proving that slightly longer wait times are objectively bad, then her argument fails. The Uninsured are very much a problemIn her rebuttal, my opponent attempts to underplay the issue of uninsurance in this country, saying that “the crisis of the 48 million isn’t as drastic as it appears at face value.” I can assure you, reader, that not having health insurance is one of the most drastic possible situations one can be in. Certainly, if over half of all bankruptcies in the US are related to medical costs, and almost 2 million people die every year due to inadequate preventive care, then this is an issue that should be of great national concern. And, despite my opponent’s wishful thinking, over 30 million Americans will still be uninsured even after the Affordable Care Act [1]. Finally my opponent claims that “a Single Payer system simply reduces care as it increases waiting times.” I have already shown that Canada still has perfectly reasonable waiting times, and that the vast majority of Canadians would prefer to stay in Canada for their treatment. Also, I have already presented an array of data which show that Canada still yields very high survival rates despite its incrementally higher wait times.Single Payer is cost effectiveI did not disregard my opponent’s statistic about Canada’s health care inflation. I simply said that my statistics regarding health inflation, all three of which come from wholly non partisan sources, should be examined as well. My opponent drops the argument that, when Canada implemented its Single Payer system, health care costs were about 8.9% of GDP in Canada, and 11.5% of GDP in the US. Today, Canada spends about 10% of GDP, compared to the US which spends 17% of its GDP. Furthermore, my opponent ceases to acknowledge the significantly lower inflation of the Medicare system, the bloated administrative costs and profits of private insurance, the $200 billion in potential Single Payer savings, and the fact that Canada has recently been investing in an ICT system, which is appearing as short term health care inflation. The fact of the matter is, there is near universal consensus among economists that Single Payer would result in substantial cost savings. ConclusionOne of the core tenets of our Nation is that we care about one another. We can extend health care to every American, saving 2 million lives a year, reducing expenses by $200 billion, cutting health care inflation in the long term, improving health outcomes, and strengthening freedom. For this, I urge a Pro ballot.Sources[1]http://www.pnhp.org...[2]http://cnsnews.com...[3]http://www.aarp.org...;[4]http://pnhp.org...[5]http://www.floridahealth.gov......