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Should universal health care be implemented in the US given current conditions

To begin the next round I will be rebutting my opponent’s arguments. First my opponent has stated that universal health care can be paid for. This is very true but my argument wasn’t whether we can pay for it. My argument is that we can’t afford to pay for universal health care given our current situation which is a lot different. My opponent has provided a study by the CEA yet it hasn’t helped him. The study he provided by the CEA was never in favor of universal health care. As you can see in the actual study, the words “universal health care” are nowhere to be found (1). The first CEA report he provided has actually hurt his own argument in regards to universal health care. My opponent has stated that, “a properly implemented Universal Healthcare plan would actually help stimulate our economy.” Yet, he hasn’t provided any evidence to support his claims. Shortly after, he claims that, “The annual cost of healthcare in the US is currently growing at an exponential rate, and a study conducted by the CEA shows that even if we slow that rate of growth by only 1.5%, our countries gross domestic product would increase by nearly 8% by the year 2030." If you read this very closely the study has concluded that the current annual cost of health care is growing at an exponential rate. If we were to slow this rate by 1.5% then according to the study the economy would grow. According to this study about 46 million Americans are currently uninsured (1). Adding just them to our coverage and cutting rising health care rates by 1.5% would be extremely difficult, adding all Americans and cutting rising health care rates by 1.5% would be close to impossible. To conclude this paragraph I have quickly reviewed the first study he has provided. Based off of the study and my opponent’s conclusion I’m led to believe that my opponent hasn’t even read the study. My opponent hasn’t proven how a properly implemented universal health care plan would help our economy and these specific arguments that he has provided are false. On top of that they go against his very arguments as I have proven this in the above paragraph. For the next part I’ll be addressing my opponent’s arguments about the Billionaire class. First it’s important to understand that my opponent has put Donald Trump and the billionaire class in one section that can afford to pay for health care. It’s important to understand that it’s not limited to just the billionaire class but also most of the upper middle and wealthy classes in America that can also can afford health care. My opponent has stated that since Donald Trump would theoretically be paying more taxes than others that would mean that he would be paying for others health care and in turn he would help the plan of universal health care. Although I do know that we need to tax the rich more taxing them too much can create problems and become more dangerous than good. One problem for example could be a a massive flee of all the rich businessmen. Usually the rich don’t sit around and wait to be taxed. France has proven that just imposing more taxes on the rich can lead to the simple act of most wealthy businessmen relocating themselves to another country. When François Hollande the president of France introduced a new tax policy in 2012 that was higher than before and targeted the rich more he learned an ancient truth: Wealth taxes don’t redistribute wealth; they redistribute people. Shortly after this policy change many wealthy businessmen left the country including the richest man in France, Bernard Arnault (2). This is one example of how the wealthy will always try to avoid taxes. Even if under my opponents plan the US adopted an extremely strict tax policy and really went after the wealthy there would most definitely be a war between the wealthy and the US government which would be gambling with our economy and probably wouldn’t turn out very well. Conflict of interests My opponent has dedicated a paragraph to addressing this but in his entire paragraph he hasn’t stated how we would prevent a conflict of interests aside from stating that we should implement this plan properly. My question is exactly how? My opponent wants us to take his word for it as he has stated that he wants this plan to be implemented right. He hasn’t explained to us exactly how universal health care would be implemented and I ask him to elaborate on this issue more and describe exactly how we would prevent a conflict of interests from happening. Seeing health as more than just health care My opponent has agreed with me on fact that health is more than just health care and overall a lifestyle obviously this is common sense. Although my opponent agrees with me he has stated that, “it is irrelevant to this argument.” My opponent is wrong and it’s definitely relevant to this argument. In the very study he provided from the CEA it has a paragraph titled, Reorienting the financial incentives of providers toward value rather than volume. In this paragraph there are important insights so I have decided to put the whole paragraph below. Giving patients a greater role. Engaging patients in medical decision-making can lead both to better alignment of treatment strategies with patient preferences and to lower costs: well informed patients are more likely to be comfortable with less invasive, extensive, and expensive 56 Of course, different sets of measures could be specified for different patient populations. 57 Becker, Kessler, and McClellan (2005). 20 treatment options.58 Another strategy involves creating financial incentives for patients needing complex surgeries to use high quality, lower total cost “centers of excellence.”59 It will also be important to encourage individuals through education and incentives to make healthier lifestyle choices, such as exercising and healthy eating. This is important because healthier lifestyle choices have positive, direct benefits on lowering costs.60 As you can see the study by the CEA and used by my opponent doesn’t even agree with his views(1). My opponent thinks that viewing health as more than just health care is irrelevant to this argument but as you can see the very sources he provides disagree with his viewpoint. This again is another reason as to why I am led to believe that my opponent hasn’t even read the sources he has provided. The actual implementation of this plan My opponent has stated that, “the topic of this debate is not about if Universal Healthcare COULD be implemented, it is about whether or not it SHOULD be.” Maybe my opponent hasn’t read my arguments well enough just like how he probably hasn’t read his own sources that he’s provided. Near the end of my argument in round #2 I said, “Whether or not you should do something doesn’’t just depend on the morality of it and the outcome but also whether or not you can actually do it.” My opponent hasn’t refuted this argument at all and has only said that it’s not a part of this debate. It’s important to understand that whether this plan can actually be implemented is very important since being able to do something does depend on whether or not you can actually do it. If you can’t do something then you shouldn’t do it. My opponent also thinks that health care should be a right. If you would want to amend the constitution then your chances are very low. From 1789 to 2014 approximately 11,623 measures have been proposed to amend the constitution, to date the US only has 27(3). I ask my opponent to elaborate on exactly how we would make access to health care a right. Further, I also ask opponent to address this argument and elaborate on exactly how universal health care can be implemented. Conclusion I will say that since I don’t have enough room to write my full argument I will further elaborate it in the next rounds. I acknowledge that I haven’t addressed everything but I will make sure to in the next upcoming rounds. (1) goo.gl/MtxCHT (2) goo.gl/YDAebj (3) goo.gl/7Sy3Vl