Debate: Health Care Should Be Free ?
Side: No

I have to start by saying I'm slightly biased. In Europe we all enjoy a universal right of access to health care.I agree that healthcare should be equally accessible to all, i just don't believe it should be free to anyone.I don't see not providing health care as significant motivator. I presume you recognise it is not significant in itself either when you added 'among other things'.I find it extremely hard to imagine that someone would be more likely to choose not to work in a society that offers free health care than those that do not. "Oh I should really get a job to in case I get cancer this year - nah fuck it its alright I'll just rely on the public health system". Then again I tend to believe than when people don't work it isn't entirely down to their choice either. Very few people are truly happy not working.We aren't talking about a majority. We aren't even talking about a majority of a minority. I don't mean to conflate the issue- it's a minority of a minority that does this. The idea is to reinvest the saved money into infrastructure and educational subsidies, allowing those with a work ethic to better their positions- at the expense of the lazy ones.US Welfare (by which I mean all financial assistance, including medical) breaks down to something in the neighborhood of 20% being on the program for less than 6 months, 80% being on the program for less than 5 years, and ~15% being on the program permanently. Of those on the program pemanently, ~50% have medical reasons preventing them from working. The remainder are a mix of those who are limited by education, those who are limited by mobility (some overlap), and a small minority that are simply lazy. I agree with you that few of these are simply not working because they don't have to; this plan benefits them by improving their education and mobility, at the expense of those who are simply being lazy. In a nation with a population in the hundreds of millions or more, a minority of a minority still represents a lot of people and a lot of money; its estimated that there are a couple hundred thousand people and families skating by that could otherwise make it on their own. Obviously, consideration should be made to those who are kept from the workforce due to disability, but they should be a separate category anyway in my estimation.This is more or less predicated on agreeing with you that few people are truly happy not working- if I disagreed with you on that, this plan would be punishing far more people and benefiting far fewer.The USA (its citizens) spends far more on health care per year than any other country. (University is also extremely expensive compared to anywhere else).There is no reason to suggest the country would be worse off as a whole if there was public health cover. If you set the prices that hospitals could charge for treatments based on its costs, cut out insurance companies, there would be a lot less money drained from the pockets of the citizens either through tax or through their own spending.There are nearly half a million people working for health insurance companies in the US; removing health insurance from the equation puts a lot of people out of work- thats not something that can be done lightly, I dont believe. It's not a bad take on it, but I think with the current climate it's better for everyone if we make education accessible to all, and bring our mass transit up to snuff.