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Essential services should be socialized, and privatized services should be regulated.

The assertion that the PRC had 1/2 the nominal GDP is correct. Pro wishes to use a different measuring scale which is perfectly acceptable but the fact still remains that this is the next wealthiest nation and provides a scale of where other nations with universal healthcare are in terms of wealth and why average healthcare spending per person might be different among these nations. While it may be true that the US ranks lower in terms of GDP per capita than some nations with universal healthcare, these nations rank lower in terms of GDP (PPP) per capita than nations with even freer markets such as Luxembourg (http://en.wikipedia.org...), Singapore (http://en.wikipedia.org...), and Hong Kong (http://en.wikipedia.org...) and Luxembourg tops all of pro’s examples here in the nominal GDP per capita. My statement about progressive work policies can’t be used as support for regulations because while life expectancy may increase in the short run, in the long run it slows productivity which can result in economic failure and then much shorter life expectancy. On spending, some people just choose to pay more to use more of different kinds of services. This is the individual data that cannot be seen or assessed by using spending to GDP ratios or average spending per person. The government should not have control over healthcare because as I said last round, it could abuse its power and choose who lives and dies based simply on politics. The logic on the 1/5 the GDP is that if public education was better at fueling an economy than private education, then the GDP should be higher than that of the US which uses large numbers of private institutions for education rather than the mostly government run system of Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org...) and the highly regulated and subsidized system of Australia(http://en.wikipedia.org...). Also, while in the US we may have freedom of information, this is not guaranteed to last forever particularly if the government controls education. We are not talking about a short term impact but a long term one and to sacrifice our descendants’ freedom for a wasteful public education system is not only impractical but also against the goals of the constitution and the very reason for founding the US (see preamble). Also, if public schooling is eliminated then lower cost private schools would reenter the market, give the current high rate private schools competition, and thus provide quality, cost effective education to most, if not all, who want it. While it may seem that we should force people who simply want to keep their wealth to sacrifice it, this is both immoral and impractical. It is immoral in that you are essentially stealing from someone who has earned their wealth to give to someone who hasn’t and impractical because it drains the private sector’s wealth which could have been otherwise allocated later to grow the economy and employ the needy. It is better to teach a man to fish than to simply give him one, especially if that fish is stolen. While large scale business may attempt to use their wealth to lobby for special benefits, the solution to this is not more government, but less. If the power of government is reduced alongside taxes, there will be less of an incentive to lobby for tax breaks, subsidies and special regulations. As I pointed out last round, there would be fewer economic stagnations and they would be less severe if the government did not heavily regulate, tax, and use monetary stimulus. In these conditions, welfare is unnecessary and currently is a burden that must be removed if the economy is to prosper which leads to higher employment and standards of living. It is correct that you are only served if you pay and this is the most fair way of rationing because it rewards people based on what they’ve done, not on need. It is also the most practical because if we rewarded based on need, then the needy would likely just keep getting needier and as Thatcher said, “The problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.” To further answer pro’s argument on Scandinavia, oil is not the only cause of their wealth. Another cause, particularly for Sweden, is it had free markets between 1870 and 1950. Then, Sweden implemented an ever growing welfare state which caused economic stagnation. The effect of the welfare state has been alleviated by a slight return to free markets which has marginally improved the economy since 1980.(http://mises.org...) Regulations in general actually do deny economic freedom and this is not debunked but rather supported by Heritage. Heritage shows that the US regulatory state has become more powerful and has dragged down economic freedom as shown by these tables (http://www.heritage.org...). There is no problem with a business having to compensate for property damages after settling in court. The existence of property rights will serve as enough of a deterrent to not damage property through pollution that only a few suits would be necessary to set an example. One universal law is not more efficient. Pollution by government is affirmed. Businesses would not necessarily do the same if the waterways were privately owned. The government doesn't need to promote chemical toilets because if businesses have to compensate for polluting waterways they will have an incentive to find more efficient disposal or raise rates thus either causing a shift to chemical toilets or a shift to a less pollution by the sewage provider. The reason that absent regulation conditions would have improved is the incentive to keep your workforce alive and undamaged. If you have no workforce, you can't produce and if you can't produce, you can't sell or profit. That is the incentive to improve safety. No it is not ideal that children had to work to keep from starving but at the time the only three options were work, starve, or live as a subsistence farmer for the rest of your life, even public school, as pro pointed out, was not a viable option because they either had to work in factories, or on a farm. Mechanization, although progressing rapidly, was not nearly as far along as it is today and if you look to developing nations, you find that they are mechanizing much more quickly than the US did during the industrial revolution because the technology to do so already exists. In the PRC as well, working conditions are actually high when compared to the industrial revolution in the US. Also, the wealth does not simply remain at the top, large amounts of it are making it to a growing middle class (http://www.youtube.com...) as evidenced by the documentary the “People’s Republic of Capitalism.” It is correct that trusts would be nothing to worry about because they would still have to worry about potential competition. There would remain an incentive to keep operations efficient and improve products to avoid the possibility of new competitor replacing them. Also, with an unregulated market and a government whose sole purpose is to protect rights, the trust would not be able to simply squash competition by abusing its power otherwise it would infringe upon the rights of others and the government shield would step in for protection. Antitrust legislation diminishes competition as I previously said. If a business knows that its competitor is simply going to get cut down by legislation, then there is less reason to continue to compete. It is also a disincentive for the competitor that knows that its achievement is capped, reducing the incentive to achieve.