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

1 – Free Market System Stands As I stated in my last rebuttal, my opponent cannot attack this system by pointing to flaws in the status quo, as the status quo in America is not a free market system. However, my opponent attempted to justify that it is – yet he glossed over the reasons as to why we’re not a free market system by simply stating they weren’t significant enough. He referenced a quotation from my previous rebuttal, which I have bolded for emphasis, “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.”11 His response was, “while fair claims, do not invalidate the US as having a predominantly free market system”. In fact these claims do invalidate that – we’re taking choice away from the middle class, a major tenant of a free market system, and implementing a single-payer system (the opposite of a free market system) for the groups that cost us the most. Pro then claimed that under the ACA – America’s version of a universal health care system – there exists an online market. However, simply put, America is not a free market system because individuals do not have proper control over their own money and their own plans. This is reflected in the rationing argument. My opponent refuted my rationing argument with, “health care inevitably must be rationed under any system”. The issue with a Single-Payer system is that the rationing of care is no longer controlled by individuals, power is taken away from them as the government rations care. Thus, my opponent has failed to adequately attack my original point on the benefits of having a free market system and my arguments as to how it benefits autonomy and entrepreneurship stand. 2 – Government is the Biggest Threat to Entrepreneurship Originally, Pro attempted to turn my source about the threats to entrepreneurship against me, claiming it showed private insurance harmed entrepreneurship. Pro then construed this to show that a free market system harms entrepreneurship more because it involves private insurance. However, I responded to this by returning to my source, which clearly states that the government is by far the greatest threat to entrepreneurship, thus making a strong case against a Single-Payer system if we value entrepreneurship3. If government involvement is the worst for entrepreneurship, than a free market system better protects for it as it removes the government. Along with this argument is the one of doctor satisfaction and while my opponent claims I conceded that, “empirical data unequivocally shows that nations with Single Payer have higher doctor satisfaction rates” this is far from true. The issue is that the data does not prove that doctor satisfaction is only controlled by if a country has a Single-Payer system or not, and I brought up the example of Switzerland to illustrate how doctor satisfaction is simply something that varies between countries, regardless of their system. My opponent tried to counter by saying Switzerland is an example of Single-Payer; however, it is actual one of the model free market systems11. Given that my free market arguments still stand, I already win as I’ve shown that the U.S. shouldn’t implement a Single-Payer system as it harms autonomy and entrepreneurship. However, I will go on to address the further points of clash that give more reason to negate. Starting by re-evaluating how the Canadian system is severely flawed. 3 – Quality of Care The issue of wait times is a very serious one to consider when evaluating the Canadian system of care. Addressing this, Pro claims that “Canada is not “blocking access to care;” it still has universal coverage for every citizen, plus wait times what the majority of experts call “reasonable.” “ First, he is mistakenly equating having universal coverage (health insurance for all) with having health care. The issue with Canada’s system is that the large amount of coverage means that people are limited in how they can access their care. Returning to my original statistics, this is reflected in how 928,120 Canadians were waiting for surgeries in 20139. My opponent claims this is what the majority of experts call “reasonable”; however, returning to the Fraiser Institute’s reflection, “Canada is effectively reneging on its promise of universal health care for those citizens forced to endure these long waits … These lengthy delays have real and important effects on Canadians’ health and well being, imposing pain and suffering, mental anguish, lost productivity at work and leisure, and possibly even disability and death.”9 Furthermore, note that my point from my case about people being placed in inappropriate care has stood unattacked so this also flows through to show why the care under the Canadian system is undesirable. 4 – Costs This has been one of the greatest points of clash as to the value of the Canadian system, but you must see the Pro loses it. My opponent opened his summary on this issue by stating, “I did not disregard my opponent’s statistic about Canada’s health care inflation”; yet, he does. He dismissed it due to its source originally, and after I clarified this he left it untouched. He simply returns to his statistics about current expenditure per GDP and fails to address the current trends we see in spending. What my evidence has shown is that Canada is on a highly unsustainable spending path, by 2017 six provinces are predicted to be spending at least half of their revenue on health care14. In comparison, the United States has recently slowed its spending to a monumentally low growth rate, and this has been contributed to the implementation of ACA8. These numbers directly illustrate how the Canadian system encourages rapid, unsustainable spending. The point of this was to show that even if a Universal Health Care system is preferred, the Canadian system ought not serve as a model, urging a Con ballot as Pro’s side is flawed. Finally I will close by addressing: 5 – Obligation to Insure Important to regard with this point, is that my opponent never addressed the logical inconsistency I highlighted in his case, where he simultaneously claims we have an obligation to provide health insurance because, “Access to health care directly dictates our quality of life and ultimately our freedom” and that wait times don’t matter because, “… wait times have nothing to do with overall health outcomes” He is claiming both that we need to have access to care to ensure a good life, and that not being able to efficiently access care doesn’t affect our lives. He cannot uphold both of these claims as they contradict each other. Furthermore on this point, my opponent continues to draw the issue of the uninsured out of proportion. He never addressed my attack as to who the uninsured actually are, yet I talked about how statistically half will become insured within a year, 3-6 million of the poor who are uninsured falsely reported so and that a majority of the middle class and “young invincibles” who are uninsured chose to be so13. These numbers are largely significant. Furthermore, looking back at wait times – forcing all of these people into a Single-Payer system causes the government to ration care which reduces everyone’s access to care. This does a great disservice to all of the citizens. Thus we can see that there is no obligation to force a Single-Payer system to “save the 48 million who are uninsured”.