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DDO Tier Tournament: The United States ought to guarantee universal health care for its citizens.

Introduction All evidence supports the idea that a Universal Healthcare system is a positive change in the US from an economic, societal, and moral standpoint. Universal Healthcare has been proven to succeed in other countries and it the United States must follow their example. Argument 1: Economic This argument is centered around the idea that if the US is going to spend significantly more than other countries on health insurance than we should see significantly better quality in health care. Health care is directly related to life expectancy as well as a number of other indicators. Disease prevention and treatment is just one example of their connection. "Recent OECD analysis suggests that health care spending growth has contributed to the improvement in life expectancy".[1] While there are other factors of course healthcare is one of the most important. If our healthcare was performing equal to or greater than other nations, which it should because we spend more than all other nations, if this was true we would be much closer to the universal standard in these issues. My opponent vastly understates the impact healthcare has on the health of the general population. Argument 2: A Viable Alternative Response to Rebuttal 1 My opponent"s main arguments against this come from the amount of Britons waiting for healthcare as well as the wait time for operations in Sweden. Of course these are two countries out of a very large number and the majority of countries have extremely successful healthcare systems. Either way my opponent"s arguments against Sweden and England still fail. "Waiting times for preplanned care, such as cataract or hip-replacement surgery, have long been a cause of dissatisfaction. As a result, Sweden introduced a health care guarantee in 2005.This means no patient should have to wait more than seven days for an appointment at a community health care center, 90 days for an appointment with a specialist and 90 days for an operation or treatment, once it has been determined what care is needed."[2] My opponent"s problems with Sweden"s healthcare are incredibly outdated and have been successfully addressed. As of today "People in Sweden are living increasingly longer. The average life span is now 83.5 years for women and 79.5 years for men. This can be attributed in part to falling mortality rates from heart attacks and strokes" [2] Not only have Sweden"s problems been easily fixed they now have a much more successful healthcare system. Access to care in England is actually at least equal to the US and the quality is much higher [3][5]. The US does poorly in quick access to care when compared with most other countries like New Zealand and Netherlands. The US also had the highest percentage in cost being a barrier to recieving Healthcare. I highly advise Judges and Con to read source [3] to get a better understanding of how superior Universal Healthcare is. "The UK's health care system is one of the most efficient in the world, according to a study of seven industrialized countries."[4] Con"s arguments and statistics are outdated and irrelevant. Healthcare is still far superior in countries with Universal Healthcare. Response to Rebuttal 2 The US already spends more on healthcare as a percentage of our GDP. There is no evidence to support your conclusion that the US spending more on healthcare could hurt the economy. It could create jobs and help create a more productive (greater health leads to greater production) workforce. If anything it will significantly help the economy. If we could switch to spending as little on healthcare as countries with Universal healthcare, we would see incredible economic benefits. Response to Rebuttal 3 For this argument Con cites a source 7 which he does not have. It"s an interesting idea but I doubt there is any evidence supporting the idea that people will "overuse" medical facilities. I do believe insurance will motivate people to go to the doctor an appropriate number of times it is absurd to believe that once someone is insured they will go to the doctor too much. There is just no motivation for it. There is motivation to go to the doctor an appropriate amount of times but not excessively. When the government began picking up trash do you think people were suddenly throwing away more trash? There is just no logical reason to overuse some services. Argument 3: Healthcare is a Right Response to Rebuttal 1 The US is a major member in the United Nations. When a human right is defined (a definition the US helped to create and agreed to) it is universal. The US has accepted the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights. Human rights are not particular to a country, they are universal. Response to Rebuttal 2 "My opponent also states that the constitution states the clause, "promote general welfare". This clause, nor any other clause in the constitution gives congress the power to create a Universal Healthcare System. The "General Welfare" clause gives Congress the power "To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States." [2] This clause is not a grant of power to congress " it is a limit to a power given to Congress, limiting the purpose for which Congress can lay and collect taxes."" First of all note the contradictions in this quote which are bolded. Second of all pay attention to the sources he uses to back up this argument. Source 3 does not exist, and source 2 and 4 lead to an article with this title "Is Government Motors Lying about Its New Electric Car?" We can safely conclude that promoting "the general welfare" requires action. Promote-to contribute to the growth or prosperity of [6] General Welfare- The concern of the government for the health, peace, morality, and safety of its citizens. [7] So, if Congress has the power and responsibility to promote health of its citizens, and Universal Health Care will help grow that health, then Congress is obligated to enact Universal Healthcare. Response to Rebuttal 3 "In order for something to be a right in the U.S., it must be in the constitution. The constitution has had changes over the course of time [these changes are known as amendments], and any rights that are guaranteed under these amendments are also rights under the constitution. If we take in everything I have stated here into consideration, my opponent"s argument that the Health Care is a right fails because: Universal Health Care is not a constitutional guarantee, because Congress has tried to pass Universal Health Care as an amendment before, and FAILED. [5]" Let"s take a closer look at that logic. My opponent clearly believes that Universal rights don"t apply if they are not in the Constitution or one of its amendments. This logic is clearly flawed. The 13th amendment was actually rejected several times before it was finally ratified [8]. It can then be concluded that whatever the 13th amendment was proposing was not a human right. Freedom from slavery was not a human right until the amendment was ratified. The same goes for the 19th amendment and women"s suffrage. All of these amendments that progressed human rights in the US were at one time, widely condemned. Had any one of them been attempted earlier in time they could have easily been rejected and declared "not a human right". This is absurd. It"s possible a Universal Healthcare amendment could be added to the Constitution in the future. Even if it is not passed this doesn"t mean Universal Healthcare is not a right. Much of the Constitution is vague as well. The "Promote the General Welfare" clause could very well be making Universal Healthcare a right. A lack of specificity is not an indication that the Constitution is not referring to healthcare. Key question "If congress has tried to pass an amendment about Universal Health Care, and it failed to pass, then how is it a right?" The Constitution and its amendments is not the arbiter of what is and is not a fundamental and universal human right. Its job is to try and reflect what those rights are; however, it is not perfect. Just as in the suffrage and slavery examples there will always be a delay in recognizing something as a right. It may even miss some rights, but it is our job as a nation to nevertheless make sure these rights are fulfilled. Argument 4: Benefit to Society Response to Rebuttal 1 Your arguments do not stand because I have shown that your statistics are outdated and incorrect. Response to Rebuttal 2 1. 1. Your assertions here have no supporting evidence. I have already shown that quality of care is actually much greater than quality in the US and other countries have not had to resort to "rationing and limit the availability of services". This has not hurt pricing earlier. I refer you back to my graph showing spending on health per capita and as a percentage of GDP. There is ample evidence to suggest Universal healthcare would raise quality and lower costs. 2. 2. There are a variety of ways to address this problem. "The approach most favored by experts at Harvard and elsewhere is to reshape traditional primary care: from a stream of patients waiting to see one harried doctor to a more efficient team practice in which patients with routine problems are seen by nurse-practitioners and physician assistants " trained specialists with master's degrees. The team frees the doctor to spend more time with patients with more serious complaints." [9] Even if we didn"t make this switch other countries with Universal Healthcare systems faced the same transition to training more doctors and they have been successful. There is no reason to believe we won"t be. Other possible solutions are to "Increase the number of medical graduates through increased recruitment of minority students domestically, as well as intensified recruitment of foreign-trained graduates" or "Increase the number of medical schools and classroom sizes." [10] 3. 3. There is no evidence to back this up. Increasing access to preventive care would actually decrease the amount of money spent on health care by decreasing the occurrence of more major and expensive problems. Enacting Universal Healthcare saves the taxpayer money. [11] Response to Rebuttal 3 You made the argument several times actually that Universal Healthcare would increase demand. "As the perceived price decreases, demand will increase." "As demand increases to exceed the available supply of health services" The incentive to become a doctor is greater than ever. The income of doctors will only be affected positively [12]. According to this study, more than half of US doctors support switching to a Universal Healthcare system [13]. There is no evidence to support anything to the contrary. Conclusion All of Con"s rebuttals have been refuted and all of the evidence supports my position. Universal Healthcare is the best Healthcare system available to the US right now and the government is obligated to enact it. [1] http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org... [2] http://sweden.se... [3]http://www.commonwealthfund.org... *read page 8 [4] http://assets.ce.columbia.edu... [5]http://www.nhs.uk... [6] http://www.merriam-webster.com... [7] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com... [8]http://en.wikipedia.org... [9] http://www.aarp.org... [10] http://en.wikipedia.org... [11] http://progressivewomencolorado.com... [12] http://www.medscape.com... [13] http://www.reuters.com...