I ask my opponent to state why he thinks standard...
Should universal health care be implemented in the US given current conditions
My opponent keeps hiding from reality. Over the course of this debate my opponent has kept on dodging questions and seems to be always concerned about what’s relevant to this debate. When this debate was started it was supposed to be a debate based on reality and not science fiction. In the title it’s clear that this debate is about a current political issue. That’s why a part of the title states, “given current conditions.” My opponent really doesn’t want to argue one of the most important parts of this debate and that’s the actual implementation of the plan. I believe if it was an easy argument for him then he probably wouldn’t complain about whether or not it’s relevant to this debate and would probably argue it instead. Anyhow lately he’s gotten very technical with definitions. If he wanted to debate this way he should have let me know before the debate. This debate was supposed to be on common sense and logic. That’s why I never provided definitions or made rules at the beginning. If he wants to debate technically then maybe he should also use proper definitions for his own arguments. For example at the end of round three he states “I hope we can both… reach a civil agreement by the end!“ Technically a civil agreement is an agreement that’s usually reached through court. (1) Now do we all understand what he means? Absolutely. He doesn’t actually mean that he hopes we reach an agreement through court but rather just an agreement. This is just one simple example of how I wanted this debate to be. This debate was supposed to be casual where neither of us got technical and just focused on the issue of this problem not definitions. I ask my opponent to keep this debate on topic, relevant to reality and relevant to the real life issue we are debating on. Counterplan Since my opponent has asked me to provide a better plan on health care I will provide a very general outline of a couple plans that are better. I will keep it simple because my opponent has only stated that he believes we should implement universal health care which is a very general outline of a big plan. It’s only fair that I’m allowed to do the same. Universal health care plan (modified) I don’t like this plan but it’s better than the universal health care plan my opponent supports. What if we took the same plan but modified it to only pay for those who couldn’t afford to pay for health care. For those who could only pay a certain amount the government could help them pay and maybe split the bill in half. Really the man reason as to why this plan is better is because it will save our budget a lot. I ask my opponent to state why he thinks standard universal health care is better A competitive but safe market This plan is a lot safer for the real world since it’s easier to implement and there’s less room for corruption. In this plan the proposal would be keep the market competitive to lower prices but still keep a sense of security with some government aid. To keep the market competitive we would repeal unnecessary laws that made the market less competitive. This would help prices to become lower. Since it’s not right to force individuals to participate in a program they don’t want to we could give them tax credits if they decided to choose alternative medicine or some other form of medicine that the government doesn’t cover. This would help ALL health companies to stay competitive not just the pharmaceutical and big health companies. In order to keep a sense of security the government would pay for any costs that an individual couldn’t afford. Of course this plan depends on a lot of changes within our government, especially with our budget. That means that in order to be able to pay for this plan we would also have to cut other parts of our budget that aren’t necessary. Remember this is just a general outline of a bigger plan. My opponent’s plan is just to somehow implement universal health care the right way. Just these two plans that I have mentioned will definitely work better than universal health care. They are easier to implement and there’s less room for corruption. When I outlined the modified universal health care plan I have to say that I don’t agree with it but it’s better than a standard universal health care plan. I will now refute some of my opponents arguments My opponent wants me to expand on my argument that implementing universal health care would be close to impossible. It seems strange that he’s mostly been arguing that the implementation of universal health care is irrelevant to this debate but he still wants me to expand my argument on this important point. I’m glad to say that at least my opponent has addressed this point and I will easily refute his argument. My opponent thinks that drafting a bill with preventative measures would prevent fraud. The problem with this is that you can never guarantee if that plan would even pass through congress. Our current congress has a 2% passing rate (2) and if we had a president that doesn’t agree with this bill he could easily veto it even if the bill did somehow manage to pass. Further, if the president is corrupt and works for special interest groups and corporations he could easily put a line item veto on any preventative parts of that specific bill. Obamacare is an example of a program that couldn’t be fully implemented because of corruption and parts of government blocking this plan. This is just a simple example of how difficult it is to actually implement anything in our government. One of the next reasons as to why it would be difficult to make sure this plan is implemented right is because our government itself doesn’t work well. Think about it for a moment. Which program or office of our government actually works efficiently? Not really any part does. Anyone should know this if they have tried to work with the IRS or the DMV. If the government can’t even manage itself then we can’t trust the government to somehow manage such a complex program such as universal health care. Let’s just take another example, here’s just one person who’s in our government. How can you expect for us to have an efficient program when we have people like Hank Johnson. My opponent has made plenty of false accusations. Throughout the course of this debate my opponent has made too many false accusations. He’s made so many in fact that I don’t have enough space refute them all. If you have been following this debate then make sure to read the comments. At the bottom of the comment section a debate starts between me and my opponent. Since I don't have enough room to refute them all I will later refute the rest in the comment section. Next I will refute some false accuasations he's made. 1) My opponent has stated that, “my opponent cites the same CEA study I cited before, just after claiming it was not relevant to this debate.” This is false. If you have read my argument in round three NOWHERE in my argument did I state that the study he brought was not relevant to this debate. Further, he’s the one, who has stated that, Any plans for cleaning food sources or the environment, and educating the people, would be separate plans that could be used in conjunction with a Universal Healthcare plan, and that is what the CEA study was referring to This is again another false statement. The CEA study specifically said, “This is important because healthier lifestyle choices have positive, direct benefits on lowering costs” I think that my opponent doesn't understand what direct benefits mean but he originally provided the study not me. I further extend my unaddressed arguments from the previous round. My opponent hasn't addressed all my arguments and has made false accuasations. Further I hope he addresses my arguments and reviews his. (1) http://www.ehow.com... (2) https://www.govtrack.us... (3) https://www.whitehouse.gov...