National Healthcare in the US

Affordability:

- One of the major arguments I hear against national healthcare is it would cost Trillions every year and would bankrupt America, While this is true it is a very one-sided argument and here's why. According to the Washington Post, Bernie's healthcare plan would cost 7. 35 trillion yearly, While private healthcare would cost 7. 7 Trillion yearly. It is very obvious that national healthcare would actually be cheaper than privatized healthcare. Therefore the affordability argument is debunked.

Universality:

- By the US implementing a national healthcare model, ALL Americans rich and poor alike would have access to healthcare. This would provide a number of benefits such as higher life expectancy, Better worker productivity, And an overall boost to happiness in America. This would also reduce the number of people going bankrupt in the US, According to the commonwealth fund, " 41 percent of working-age Americans" or 72 million people "have medical bill problems or are paying off medical debt, Up from 34 percent in 2005. " Very clearly many Americans are struggling with paying off health care debt, And by the US instituting national healthcare, This would alleviate that stress.

By far the most common argument I've heard against national healthcare is the wait times and the overall downturn in quality it brings. This is quite simply a baseless accusation that is not backed up by statistics at all.

Statistically, 45,000 people die from our privatized healthcare model, this is equivalent to a monthly 9/11

An argument I heard in the last debate was that the US has the best doctors in the world, therefore private healthcare is bad. Statistically, this is sorta true as according to countrydetail.com in 2016, the US only ranked #1 right behind Germany which has a mixed healthcare system. Besides other countries with national healthcare still rank high on the list, Norway, Canada, and Japan all have great doctors according to this list. 

Another common argument against the quality of national healthcare is the wait times in these countries. This is true for countries such as Canada, However, This is mostly for specialists and surgeries which of course are going to have longer wait times. The only reason the US doesn't have these long wait times is simply that less and fewer people have access to healthcare in the first place.

Ask yourself what is more important, Wait times? Or the thousands of people who die due to not affording healthcare and the millions going bankrupt due to healthcare?

countries with mixed healthcare such as Germany and Switzerland have around the same wait times as the US does, what this means is that privatized healthcare doesn't automatically equal too faster wait times. 

- Ok, you do realize that 7.7 trillion is equivalent to 7.70 million right? the .7 means 70 in math. 

- This does very little to debunk nationalized healthcare as you provided little to no elaboration onto why this somehow debunks it. This also does little to prove that privatized healthcare would suddenly solve this issue better than a national healthcare would. 

- Privatized healthcare is very limiting from it limiting consumers onto 1 establishment and on certain coverages. National healthcare not only allows consumers a wide variety of establishments but gives consumers coverage for EVERYTHING. 

- There are many reasons why the US is the home for the most innovation in the medical industry than just " people are paid more". The US as it stands as one of the best economies in the world and the most influence in the world. Plus technological innovation is irrelevant if only a small portion of people can even afford said innovation. 

- Then explain how similar countries such as Germany and literally almost every other country have rising life expectancies while the US's life expectancies are dropping. Also, healthcare contributes also to have better dietary habits. 

- Wrong on almost all accounts, the way nationalized healthcare works is that it provides healthcare to those who need it above people who don't need it. So a person going in for a life-threatening surgery will go first in line over a person who sprung an ankle. Also, the reality of the situation is that poor people are generally covered by Medicaid and Medicare while rich people currently have more than enough money to pay for healthcare. Going off of this, the people MOST affected by a privatized healthcare are those who aren't rich but also don't qualify for social programs, in other words, the middle class which last time I checked sustain jobs. 

- Also, do you really believe the stereotype that poor people are just lazy deadbeats? While some poor people are defiantly like this, 99 % of poor people are working hard and working longer hours to provide for their families. Not everyone is so fortunate to have a job or even be able to work. With the way technology is going, AI robots are taking over peoples jobs and reducing the number of jobs needed to be performed. Besides, do you really hate deadbeats so much that you'd be willing too put innocent hardworking poor people without medical care just to punish a small minority that does abuse the system? 

- Because what this shows is that Privatized healthcare does NOT correlate with better doctors when mixed healthcare systems have equal or better doctors than the US does. 

Privatized systems only provide the person with what the person pays for. 

- Again I already addressed this argument earlier, however, I will briefly summarize it again. The majority of people burdened by these insane medical prices are the middle class, and the majority of poor people are hard workers who may have just been unfortunate.

lol you caught me. I still don't know where you are getting this information from though, because it's my understanding that publicly funded healthcare would cost more in tax dollars than healthcare which is not payed for in tax dollars, if that doesn't seem obvious enough.

What I'm saying is we could use some natural selection.

It is simply not practical or logical to take from contributers and give to non-contributers.

What if a given national healthcare policy DOESN'T give you any choice or cover certain things?

The US has one of the best economies in the world because they are not socialists who redistribute the wealth of successful people by force.

On what basis do you make this claim that the quantity of people helped by the system automatically makes it better, regardless of the quality or free choice involved?

It's also a bit hyperbolic to say only a small portion benefit, I am not rich but I have been able to benefit from medical establishments without getting buried in debt.

US life expectancies are not dropping to my knowledge.

What if a hundred people with the same condition are on the same waiting list? What if there was a different system of privatized healthcare than the one currently employed in the US?

I do not believe that poor people are all a bunch of deadbeats.

, I believe the answer is freedom and innovation, and that things will naturally become better, cheaper and more efficient at a faster rate in the free market as opposed to a bureaucratic government run system.

Well I listed you my sources in my rebuttal. While tax dollars would raise, it is still almost irrelevant. Think about it this way, I pay 1,500 dollars of taxes for national healthcare, however since healthcare costed 2,000 dollars, I saved 500 dollars. The values aren't exactly like this mind you, however the concept is still the same.

Ok this is not only an immoral argument but an absurd one. The reality is many people in the US are unable to contribute to society, old people, mentally deficient people, or crippled people. There are also many people unable to find a job in general, with the rise of AI robots many people are getting replaced by robots.

First of all, do you really hate non contributors that much that you would rather see them die than to see us take from contributors? I would personally rather see contributors be taken advantage of than to see non-contributors die.

Last time I checked, the US has redistributed wealth for the majority of our life span, this is what taxes are.

I've already debunked the free choice argument since in privatized you only get 1 healthcare plan.

And what happens if a hundred people with the same condition are on the same waiting list in a privatized system? The system would dictate that the highest bidder would win. In other words, the rich go first, than the middle class, and than the poor.

Earlier in the debate, " These things are unfortunate, but I would argue that one is entitled to ensure their own survival to the best of their ability using their own money morose than every random hobo on the street is entitled to taxpayer money which is taken by force by the government."

Also earlier in the debate " When the time comes, a thousand deadbeats are put on a government hospital waiting list ahead of the hard working, upstanding, tax paying American and so the bright and successful taxpayer dies because he was forced to pay for a bunch of welfare babies with no job instead of keeping his own money to use it as he sees fit."

- And again the people most affected by healthcare in the country, are middle class citizens and not " welfare babies" or " deadbeats".

And it still isn't cheaper for them, because 99% of the time they're just paying the super high taxes the system would require. See, it's not really cheaper when you consider that every tax paying citizen is constantly paying higher taxes, it's only really cheaper for those who don't pay taxes and live off the government.

 I'm just saying it's not my responsibility to pay copious amounts of money for everyone else when I can afford my own healthcare.

No it doesn't, and I probably would help them anyway but that doesn't mean I should be forced to do so.

The US was founded in part on not forcing people to pay huge taxes, that was one of the main things the founders were aiming for.

 In a private system you get what you pay for, which is not perfect but it's better than a system where everyone is forced to pay for and receive the same government healthcare.

Wealth is not a perfect way to determine who is more important, but it's better than completely arbitrary like a national system. 

I am not saying that all poor people are losers and Hobos etc.

Is it really more moral to increase a successful person's chance of dying to save a non-contributer? No it is not,

First of all, this is an anecdotal claim. I have already provided you with statistical data earlier in the debate that proves that if the US adopted a universal model, the costs would actually be cheaper than the privatized model. You have provided me no statistical data to prove otherwise.

Secondly living off of welfare is impossible, the amount of money you obtain from the welfare system isn't something you can live off of. The welfare money is something you obtain to help. And again 

Thirdly do you really hate poor people this much that you would rather see them die than to see them abuse the system? 

Fourthly, this again does not make any sense since poor people currently already obtain government benefits while the rich don't have to worry. Therefore it only makes sense that the middle class are the ones most affected by it. 

This logic also works for funding of the military, funding of the police force, and funding of schools. I guess I don't have any responsibility to pay taxes for these services than. 

Even if this were the case, why is consumer choice such an issue that you'd be willing to bankrupt and let people die just for it? Is consumer choice really that big of a deal to you? 

Secondly, if you are going to use the argument that government healthcare is bad, then how do you explain the fact that the US is nowhere near other developed countries with national healthcare systems such as Canada, Japan, or Spain. Or other mixed healthcare models such as Germany or Switzerland? 

Again this is not accurate, in a national healthcare system the most urgent surgeries get put ahead first. At least in this " arbitrary " system, everyone gets healthcare and not just who pays more. 

You called them welfare babies, deadbeats, and you are acting as if they shouldn't have a right to life equal to other more fortunate people. 

This link explains why it is more expensive overall.https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/why-single-payer-would-make-health-care-worse-americans

This is not an argument. People die all the time, it isn't my responsibility to keep them alive just because I have more money than them.

Yes and in a nationalized system the only thing that would change is that the middle class would be paying high taxes instead of high medical bills

In my opinion the only answer is to make healthcare cheaper and better with scientific innovation in the field of medicine and with an open, free market with some regulation to prevent malpractice and medical negligence.

America's military is way too overblown to begin with, it could do with some budget cuts.

The police are important because without the police criminals would run a muck, and schools are what turn hyper-active children into productive, bright and disciplined citizens who can afford their own healthcare. All those things are  fundamental to society.

without a free market innovation is stifled which is evidenced by all of modern history.

How do you explain that fully nationalized systems are not the ones you are using as examples here if the system you advocate is truly the best? 

that is the ONLY way because national healthcare is just a utopian pipe dream where everything supposedly gets magically cheaper due to massive tax increases and everything magically gets more efficient due to a massive monolithic state run medical bureaucracy.

Yes, I called them all of those things. That doesn't mean I think that of all poor people.