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

My opponent claims I base my education argument on GDP spending per person, I do not base my education arguments on spending per person at all. With regards to healthcare, GDP spending per person is only a supporting argument, and not the base claim. My opponent also claims that wealthy nations will tend to spend more on healthcare. This does not explain why wealthy countries with universal healthcare spend less per person, than the one wealthy country without universal healthcare, the United States. My opponent moves on to say that people in the United States are on average much healthier in countries with socialized medicine. However, an investigation into health statistics prove this to be untrue. Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland (which by the way, provides universal healthcare without socializing insurance), and New Zeland are among the top 10 in life expectancy. What is the ranking for the United States? 30th. (http://www.worldlifeexpectancy.com...) Also, people in the US don't get preventative care as often, thus leading to diseases that are diagnosed late. These can be diseases like cancer, in which early diagnosis is essential. High quality services are fine, but they mean nothing to the people who don't have access to healthcare. It is better for everyone to have access to good healthcare than for some to have access to great healthcare, while others don't have access at all. My opponent makes the correct assertion that national health systems are not free, they are paid for by taxes. However, when the pubic spends taxes on something, that means everyone in society will get it. It is 100% coverage for all citizens in that nation. When paying for healthcare in the free market, insurance companies commonly drop people with pre-existing conditions, put caps on the amount of care you get, raise premiums (thus making it inaccessible for poor people who don't qualify for Medicaid), etc. The marketplace in the healthcare regard may be good for the producer, but it is certainly not good for the consumer. With regards to education, my opponent claims that growing household income makes private schools more affordable. Again, when a private school costs thousands of dollars a year, (See my arguments during Round 3 for a link) it won't help those at the very end of the spectrum. If a family can afford private school, they have the right to send, but for those that can't, public schools should be open to serve them, and for others that want their taxes to mean something. Public education may have problems in the United States, but it is doing remarkably well in other countries. Western Europe, Canada, Australia, etc. It is cost-effective there. And many countries even have free universities, while maintaining a strong economy with professional workers. You can have the best education quality, but that means nothing when some people can't access it. Like healthcare, better good for all than great for some/bad for others. The free market has a strong tendency to distribute wealth from bottom to top. My opponent argues that the likely reason I believe this is because I "assume a zero sum game". I have never implied that all gains by the rich are balanced by the losses of others. All I am asserting is that some (not all) people who control wealth do a lot in their power to keep it, distributing it among themselves. While gradually weaning people off of welfare might give incentives to work, to end the system completely and to allow people who are laid off in the future to go without assistance would be undesirable. Yes, charity groups will step in, but unless you have a universal public welfare system, some people will not have access to these services. I am not saying the welfare system can't be reformed. We can reform it entirely to get the people who defraud the system off. But to get rid of it would not be fair to those in need. My opponent says that oligopolies will always fall because of market forces. This is not the case. There will be, and there have been numerous cases of oligopolies that have stayed up for a long time, having power over the unregulated market. They are so powerful, as to successfully shut down any competition. That's why we need Government regulation to keep this from happening. I affirm that Governments will not always answer to the public. However, when the people are well-informed, the Governments are able to exercise power without abuse. John F. Kennedy once said that a well-informed people must work together with a progressive Government. And today, many Americans do not even know who the Vice President is. If the people are well-informed and keep the Government in check, it makes sense to delegate services to them. The 2 examples given by my opponent both used propaganda and misinformation in order to with election to the office. Socialization of food and housing for the poor does provide a disincentive to work. It shouldn't be brand name food, and it shouldn't be luxury shelter, but it should be enough to ensure that all men, women, and children have food to eat and a rood over their head in our society. You still have the incentive of working to get a more decent shelter and more food for your family, and the sense of security you get can aid you in the effort. Please note, I am not talking about people who can work but choose not to. I am talking about the people who want to work, but don't currently have the means of doing so. The ones who were just laid off. The parents who have to be at home with their kids, etc. Markets only provide services to those that can pay. In general, that is a good thing (You need to work to get a computer and TV), but for food, water, shelter, education, etc., you need everyone to have access. And people who can't pay will not have access. That's the evidenve that my opponent asked for in the previous round. Allow me to say that I have never meant to imply that business will pay workers pennies a day. But even as incomes rose, businesses still refused to pay their workers a living wage. Even today, the minimum wage isn't enough for young adults who are establishing themselves from life. Allow me to move away from wages for a bit, and talk about working conditions. The working conditions for people before labor laws were passed were horrible. Children were forced to work, cut off from educational opportunities. The factories and mines were crowded, the machinery dangerous. And the developed world still exploits the people who make products for them. The only difference now, is that low working conditions are prevalent outside our borders. The New Deal and Progressive Era may not have create jobs, but they did provide relief to Americans. Sometimes, what's good for the economy isn't always good for the public at large. While the welfare system we have today is full of fraud, to say that we need to end instead of just reform temporary assistance to the needy is undesirable. If the property rights system worked, how come people didn't sue companies for harming the environment? I did happen before, yet nobody when to court over property. It's because of the hassle involved. Very few people have the time/money to settle a court case, thus making a universal law more efficient and easy to handle. As I said before, as long as the citizens are well-informed, and keep watch on the Government, the Government can play an active role in society. My opponent claims otherwise, however, the social market model is working well from Germany, Scandinavia, etc. They are very rich places in the developed world, and Australia, New Zeland, Switzerland, and Canada all rank higher in terms of economic freedom, than the United States! All of these countries have excellent public education, universal healthcare, Government regulation of the economy, etc. Yet they retain economic freedom.