Debate: Health Care Should Be Free
Side: Pay to Live

You claim that it will not save money if universal health-care is instated? However do you realize that about 2/3rds of US bankruptcies are due to unpaid medical bills? Do you realize what that number of bankruptcies does to the economy? It is severely detrimental.And adding trillions in new debt is more detrimental to the economy. Therefore the savings, money-wise, is at best negligible. At worst, the further skewing of the incentives within the medical market (caused by government interference) will cause the price to rise, or the quality to suffer. What cost-saving (not price saving) measures does universal healthcare include?Please explain how these measures will reduce costs.Also, I'm sure that you have private coverage, but for millions of people who do not have private coverage, they must go without. Should we ignore our responsibilities and leave these people to go bankrupt, or ignore their health problems?Any responsibility is moral, not legal. It is not the responsibility of the government to enforce an active morality, nor do they have the authority to do so. If you give them that authority, you allow for them to enforce a morality that you find disagreeable.The answer is NO. No one should be left behind.As private citizens, WE have the right to start, or contribute to paying for the medical bills or insurance of those who cannot afford it, but we have no right to force others to contribute their resources to causes which WE feel are worthwhile. They, likewise, have no right to force us to contribute to causes which THEY feel are worthwhile.Countries do better when everyone is happy and healthy.True, but the US government is limited in the actions it may take to promote such a condition. Furthermore, every interference in any market that it has attempted, so far, has had net negative effects on both the specific market with which it has interfered and in the economy as a whole (federal reserve act, new deal, great society/war on poverty, community reinvestment act).Furthermore, if this is not convincing enough, take a look at any country with a successful universal health-care system. Do you see these problems associated with the cost on society that you claim? No, you do not.Time as a Price "Canadian emergency rooms are infamous for their long wait times.[1] A recent study has shown that in most of them the average wait time exceeds 6 hours and sometimes reaches up to 23 hours."source: http://mises.org/daily/4719The Grass Is Not Always Greener: A Look at National Health Care Systems Around the World"Although no country with a national health care system is contemplating abandoning uni- versal coverage, the broad and growing trend is to move away from centralized government control and to introduce more market-oriented features."source: http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/grass-is-not-always-greener-look-national-health-care-systems-around-world  (with link to full policy analysis) *Yes, I do.And if you want to talk about un-fair burdens on the tax-payer, let us take a look at the all consuming American Military Industrial Complex. Enough saidUnjust, not unfair. There is a difference.Were it up to me, I would get rid of the Military Industrial Complex yesterday, and reduce the American military to its proper function, defending the United states, not policing the world. So we are on the same side in that argument. :)