Doctors should not be allowed to compete with other doctors' prices

ToTo begin, the list of studies is not misleading. My opponent believes that the studies fail to prove my point because their are "many factors that play in, e.g. drug and alcohol abuse." This would lead one to assume that the United States is the only country that has problems with drug or alcohol abuse, which is not the case. These so-called "factors" are also factors in other nations, meaning my attack on your a priori holds water. By the way, I would like a citation for your comment about the Canadian president using doctors here BECAUSE the particular procedure isn't offered in Canada. To clarify, no I am not advocating a set price for doctor's pay. I am advocating that the individual doctor charge the amount he/she deems adequate and they shouldn't do what all other companies do with prices, which is advertise how low they are and how high other competitors might be. This way doctors are paid what they need to be paid. Some companies like Best Buy price their computers so low in price that they actually lose money on them, but they do it to be competitive. Once doctors start losing money, there goes the quality. Moreover, my opponent mis-quoted me when he claimed that I said the doctors should be paid on their quality of their service when I said "Doctors should be paid for the service they provide, not set prices for each visit" Such as, they should be paid for their time, their assistants time, use of the equipment, and any other overhead. I would now like to address another issue. My opponent has stated that the rich will always get the best doctors, this is true. But there are still good doctors that can treat the middle and lower classes. It is these doctors that I worry about losing. Next - my opponent brings up the point that the medicine is what is most valuable to the patient, and this is true. But I would ask him and all the readers how that medicine is given out. The doctor must prescribe it. I do not limit this to prescription drugs, but also more complicated procedure like surgery and chemotherapy. Tests must be done, numbers crunched, more tests must be done, and then finally the best course of action must be taken. As stated earlier, we want these doctors to prescribe the best course of action not the cheapest. When doctors compete for the bid of the insurance companies, they are essentially owned by those companies. As stated, the company doesn't want the best course of action they want the cheapest and those two things rarely go together. I cite the teenager in California who died when the insurance companies refused to pay for a liver transplant deemed necessary by her doctor's and I encourage everyone to click on the link below and learn more about the reluctance of insurance companies to pay up. http://www.pajamadeen.com... Finally, some more of those statistics my opponent seems to dislike. Keep in mind the previous (and unanswered) quote above were I stated "Evidence suggests that over one third of health care costs goes to unnecessary tests, duplicate tests, unproven experimental procedures, bureaucracy, and overpriced drugs (which I have shown above how companies monopolize new medical breakthroughs.)" While doctors in the United States earn more money than doctors in other nations, they also pay less for other related expenses such as prescription drugs (the latter costing more money than the former) and almost all workers in the U.S. are paid salaries higher than those in other nations. The average doctor makes around $250,000 a year, which is a nice sum of money, but the average CEO and other high ranking executives of a drug companies can make million's more in that same year. I will end with a comparison, that of teachers and schools to that of doctors and medicine. If you want to cut costs in the school in order to better the system and make it more efficient, you do not do that by cutting the salaries of the teachers for performing an invaluable service. Your do things like reduce waste, use both sides of the paper, ect. Same goes for doctors, if you want to cut cost, look at my citation above for the culprits. I would like to make a small comment about my opponents "Value, Value Criterion". Justice is defined as "the moral principle determining just conduct." Looking out for those who need it is just conduct. Furthermore I would contend that my opponents Value criterion does not apply, because even if my proposition isn't upheld (As I mentioned before, doctors do not compete normally as Home Depot and Lowes does they have something called managed competition which is why there are no commercials advertising their low low prices.) The reason for this being the basic principle of supply and demand. Demand comes from the consumer's needs and the supply comes through producer. In the case of medicine the supply and the demand comes from the doctor because the consumer (patient) doesn't know what they usually need, especially in cases of severe diseases like lime disease, diabetes, STDs, cancers, ect. Since one person controls both forces, the free market system does not apply no matter what happens. I hope that I didn't leave any of my opponent's points un-attacked, as he seems to think I have (like he would have actually given me the heads up if it were true). I would like to also apologize to my opponent seeing has he dislikes my long arguments, but that is a small side effect of having facts. http://hypertextbook.com... - doctor salary http://www.forbes.com... - For what they are paying these high rankers. P.S. Citations are a nice touch.