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My 101st Debate: Universal Health Care

Thanks, Uchiha! I will rebut Con's case at this time. C1: THEFT Con challenges the framework I set out earlier. My first issue with this was that round two was for Con to lay out his case, not to rebut mine. But, since he has used it, in part, as a rebuttal, I'll address his points now. My Framework Con accuses me of doing the same type of thing I object too. In fact, what I am objecting to are the use of "a priori moral principles" dictating government policy, as per the Woller card. Using such moral principles is problematic because policies will always have to make value trade-offs; for instance, Medicaid is a policy more liberals can endorse, but most libertarians find it abhorrent. In democracies, there are always going to be values conflicts and disagreements over principles; it is not fair for governments to prejudice themselves in favor of any one such principle. Therefore, we cannot rely on moral principles to make decisions, so we have to default to an objective standard of decision-making, i.e. a cost-benefit analysis. I don't fall prey to my own objection, because I am not suggesting the government adopt any kind of moral ideology, but rather that it act dispassionately toward any morality by using a non-moral, objective, measurable criterion for decision-making. My opponent seemingly believes that any system of decision-making is necessarily moral, but that's not true. I am talking about pragmatics, not morality. I would also assert that a cost-benefit decision-making system is necessarily amoral because it doesn't proscribe what one ought to do, but rather what it is prudent to do. Moral judgments are not always prudent or pragmatic judgments. Con's Framework I have five main issues here: 1. Treating People as Self-Owners with "inviolable" Rights to Themselves as Property leads to Absurd Moral Dilemmas "Self-ownership conflicts with Pareto-Optimality...[S]ince self-ownership is construed by libertarians as an absolute right, it follows that it cannot be violated even in small ways and even when great benefit would accrue from doing so. Thus...absolute rights of self-ownership seem to prevent us from scratching the finger of another even to prevent the destruction of the whole world. And although the real objection here seems to be to the absoluteness of self-ownership rights, rather than to self-ownership rights as such, it remains unclear whether strict libertarianism can be preserved if rights of self-ownership are given a less than absolute status." [1] 2. Treating People as Property is Morally Problematic Property is something that can be sold or exchanged. If I own myself, then can I not sell myself? There are some who might be desperate enough for money or to escape their situation that they might sell themselves in exchange for food, money, clothing, shelter, etc. This undermines autonomy, which is the whole basis of Self-Ownership, thus making Self-Ownership self-defeating, and it's also clearly immoral. 3. Non-autonomous Humans Con writes, "[t]o deny that humans have this personal autonomy is to deny that there is anything morally significant about humans." Firstly, this is just blatantly false, as there are other ways to derive human value (our emotional capacity, our ability to feel pleasure and pain, etc.) But, the main issues here arise when we ask, "what of the status of non-autonomous humans?" A baby, a person with severe mental handicaps, a comatose individual--these are all people who cannot exercise autonomy in the sense Con is using it. Unless Con is prepared to deny all of these agents moral worth--a seemingly disastrous moral conclusion--then he must reject his standard of self-ownership-based libertarianism. 4. Con has not Sufficiently Proven that Natural Rights Exist Con assumes that we have natural rights, and among them include life, personal liberty, and property. He offers no justification as to why these rights are natural, why they are absolute, or why these rights are the only natural rights. So, he commits a bare assertion fallacy, and uses this fallacy to justify self-ownership. Any conclusion resting on a faulty premise cannot be validated logically. Moreover, if we agree that natural rights exist, why is health not one of them? 5. Self-Ownership Presupposes the existence of a Soul A thing cannot own itself. For something to be owned, that implies that it is under the control or possession of something else. I own my dog, my dog does not own itself. If that is the case, to say that humans are owned implies that there is something owning us, which implies the existence of a soul. To buy into self-ownership, Con must first prove that the soul exists. 6. Self-Ownership Rewards Luck, Not Hard Work or Autonomy "Recognizing rights to full self-ownership allows individuals' lives to be objectionably governed by brute luck in the distribution of natural assets, since the self that people own is largely a product of their luck in receiving a good or bad genetic endowment, and being raised in a good or bad environment." [1] Theft The use of public money for some goal cannot be said to be theft because: 1. In the state of nature land belonged to everyone. Everyone had infinite rights to everything, and it was in forming a society that some rights were surrendered to keep things stable. Since land was owned by no one in the state of nature, people claiming it for their own violates the rights of everyone else to use this land. Taxes are one way of penalizing individuals for stealing otherwise public land, and compensating everyone else for the loss of their rights. Properly understood, then, many forms of taxation are merely equalizers, not modes of theft. 2. Part of living in a community is that one incurs obligations to the community in which one lives. You get benefits from that community, and in return for those benefits, you pay taxes and participate in your civic duties. That is not theft, that is a fair exchange--something any libertarian can applaud. C2: ECONOMICS There are four issues here that I can raise: 1. Pro never describes the scope of the harms. Con just says that the impacts will be significant, but he never tells us how significant. Sure, UHC might lead to some bad economic results, but that doesn't mean that the bad will outweigh the good. Since Con never gives us any concrete statistics as to how much a country will be negatively impacted, it is impossible to weigh Con's nebulous harms against the concrete economic benefits I described. Prefer clear benefits to ill-defined harms. 2. UHC saves millions of dollars in the long run, as I noted last round. Therefore, it actually is more affordable, on balance, and over time, than a more free-market based system like the one currently being implemented in the U.S. Con also provides no warrant for his ipse dixit claim that: "virtually no government has the financial capability to successfully run a UHC program without creating large scale economic harms." UHC also solves many economic problems, like job lock and absenteeism, which I discussed last round. 3. Con the talks about dependency, and refers to some statistic about welfare. First, these stats are really old (27 yrs.), and from a conservative (i.e. biased) think-tank, the Cato Institute. Moreover, most recipients of welfare are not dependent on it (in 2005, 15.3% received benefits, whereas 3.8% were dependent.) [2] 4. Dependency isn't necessarily the worst outcome--even if we were to believe Con re: how UHC would lead to dependency. Dependency is certainly better than ill-health, letting thousands of people die, and so forth. Remember, Con says one of our most fundamental rights is that of life--surely we should value that over risks of dependency. C3: QUALITY I have four issues with Con's arguments here: 1. Con writes that "*everyone* [is] taking full advantage of [UHC], thus overloading the country's...facilities." The agreed definition of UHC states: "universal healthcare benefits need only be extended to those without insurance." This essentially renders Con's point moot. 2. It is better to have delayed care than no care at all, which, in essence, is what this boils down to. 3. Wait times are not necessarily higher in UHC countries. Con cites 3 examples of UHC producing higher wait times, but these are simply cherry-picked. Without any information about all or most UHC countries, we cannot reasonably extrapolate as to wait lines in UHC systems in general. Moreover, recent (2013) data contradicts what Con is saying. "People in many countries that spend far less on healthcare than the U.S. are more likely to say they can usually get a same-day or next-day appointment when they need it, and to say they can get after-hours treatment without going to the ER. This is true for countries that have single-payer systems, like the U.K. (though not Canada), and for many Western European countries that have multi-payer systems like ours." [3] "And even so, people in Switzerland and the U.K. were both still more likely to say they waited four weeks or less for a specialist appointment than Americans were." [3] Prefer my data as it is 22 years more current than Con's most recent statistic. 4. Waiting Times are just one aspect of care quality. On balance, and as my earlier round's evidence shows, UHC nations provide good quality care more often than not. In fact, they provide better care than non-UHC systems. HOUSKEEPING Last round, all of the [?] symbols should have been [3] instead. Sorry about that... CONCLUSION Con's arguments have no standing. Most are unsupported by evidence, and many are logically un-compelling. The resolution stands affirmed. SOURCES 1 - http://www.iep.utm.edu... 2 - http://aspe.hhs.gov... 3 - http://www.theatlantic.com...