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

I am going to start by clarifying two aspects about my case: 1 – I’m not advocating for the status quo when I push for a free market system. In his attack on my case, my opponent would attack my points on the benefits of a free market system, by showing how they are not holding true in this status quo. However, by doing this he makes the false assumption that our status quo is a free market system, which is isn’t. “The thing to remember in America is that we have single-payer health care for the elderly and for the poor: the two costliest groups. In addition, the relatively healthy middle class has heavily-subsidized private health insurance, in which few individuals have the freedom to choose the insurance plan they receive. Neither of these facts commend the American health-care system to devotees of the free market.”11 Since the status quo isn’t a free market, my opponent’s attacks that utilize the status quo to show the errors in a free market actually fall, as proving something is wrong with the status quo doesn’t prove that something is wrong with a free market system. 2 – The main fault with the status quo is government involvement. When addressing entrepreneurship, my opponent states that I concede that insurance companies are to mostly to blame for inhibiting growth, showing how therefore we ought to move to a universal system to give them substantially less power. However, the main inhibitor is not insurance companies. “Of the three third-party payer institutions, government is by far the worst at resisting entrepreneurship – even when the government itself is implementing radical change.”3 Therefore, we see that if we do truly value entrepreneurship, we should not go to a universal system where the government is in charge of providing everyone access to health care. Having clarified these points I will now go on to address the major points of contention between our cases. Effects of a True Free Market a) autonomy In his rebuttal, Pro stated, “Thus, the status quo of HMOs, PPOs, and otherwise private insurance denotes managed care, and the erosion of personal liberty with regard to health decisions … Under a system of Single Payer health care, citizens are offered free choice of doctor”. First of all, note that he attacked how under the status quo autonomy is not preserved, not analyzing it in the form of an actual free market. Furthermore, he assumes that a Single Payer system will maximize autonomy, but this is not the case. “But this leaves the rationing and decisions in the hands of government officials and bureaucrats, and the special interests that influence them, rather than with the consumer. Rationing leads to long delays for some types of operations, or never doing it at all.” Again we need to see that a single payer system takes power away from citizens and puts it in the hands of the government, which is seen to result in long delays – an observed problem in the Canadian system (more on that below). As my opponent hasn’t actually attacked autonomy under a free market system, and there are clear offenses to it under a Single Payers system, it is clear that autonomy is better preserved when we negate. b) entrepreneurship I already attacked the first portion of my opponent’s attack on this under my second point of clarification. Then on the matter of the number of doctors, my opponent again pits the status quo against Canada to illustrate how a Single Payer system better protects for the number of doctors. However, this fails to demonstrate how it compares to a free market system. Furthermore, it is natural to assume that there will be some variation in the number of employees in each field from country to country. By my opponent’s statistics Switzerland has a 79% doctor satisfaction rate and lower spending as it is advocated for as a model of a market-oriented system11 – taken by itself that indicates that doctor satisfaction is increased by turning toward a market-oriented system. What needs to be seen is that doctor satisfaction is variable and cannot simply be reduced down to a Single Payer system increases it. However, entrepreneurship in general is discouraged by government involvement because it thrives in an environment where patients have autonomy and pay directly for their care3. Again a free market is preferred; however, to uphold that even if that falls we must negate we turn to the following. Providing Care to All In his constructive, my opponent claimed a government should provide care to all because, “Access to health care directly dictates our quality of life and ultimately our freedom”. Yet, this was countered when I illustrated how with long waits, “Canada is effectively reneging on its promise of universal health care…”9 in my own constructive. To rebut this he then claimed, “… wait times have nothing to do with overall health outcomes”. What needs to be seen is that Canada is not providing universal health care because it blocks access to it by increasing the wait times for services dramatically; yet, by claiming that wait times don’t affect your health, my opponent is in contradiction with his original claim that it is having access to care that dictates our quality of life. This is a logical inconsistency to his case. Uninsured vs. Insured with Lines My opponent opened his case with an introduction in which he stated, “Currently slightly over 48 million Americans are without health insurance … A system of Universal, Single Payer health care in the United States will dramatically expand coverage …” Here he frames going to the Canadian system as reaching out to this 48 million and offering them coverage. Yet, the crisis of the 48 million isn’t as drastic as it appears at face value. In fact, when looking at who these uninsured are what arises is that half will covered within a year, 3-6 million are believed to have falsely reported being under insured, and many who make up both the higher portion of the “Middle-Income Families” and the “Young Invincibles” are believed to have opted out of coverage. The crisis isn’t one that speaks to the need for government involvement, but is simply attributed to, “population growth, immigration, the recession and – some instances – individual choice”13. Ultimately, going to a Single Payer system won’t drastically expand coverage, as many who aren’t currently covered are either expected to become covered soon or don’t want coverage. Given that it won’t do this, we see that a Single Payer system simply reduces care as it increases waiting times. My opponent quotes Dr. Carrol to justify these waits, “they are a byproduct of Canada’s choice to be fiscally conservative” which brings us to our final point of contention. Cost My opponent disregarded my statistics on the rising costs of the Canadian system because they are linked from the Daily Caller. However, the actually source for these numbers is a report done by the Fraiser Institute which is an independent Canadian public policy research and education organization. The reason I linked the data to the Daily Caller is because it seemed you had to purchase it to access it; however, to validate it I found a free electronic version14. Ultimately, the Canadian system is clearly not preferred as it has unsustainable price increases. My opponent also countered that part of the reason for the American spending drop is that, “this is in large part to the slow U.S. economy”; yet, my evidence points that this is in large part due to the ACA8, more so than the economy. This further emphasizes the undesirability of the Canadian system, showing we must negate. Sources 11 - http://www.forbes.com... 12 - http://www.progress.org... 13 - http://www.ncpa.org... 14 - http://www.fraserinstitute.org...