Universal Healthcare; yay or nay?

[UMULAS]

I'm in the national forensic league and the Lincoln Douglas issue for the next two months is "should the United States have universal health care".

Since I am in the RPF, specifically in economics subject, you guys probably might know a lot more on the disadvantages, sources, documentaries, and austrian think tanks. Any documentaries, videos, books, that I should look at in the matter?

[Travlyr]

No. The free market can deliver much higher quality health care at much lower costs.

[Bruno]

The United States already has health care.

What a poorly worded question. Unless it was purposely suggesting there was no health care before the government stepped in.

[Travlyr]

The United States already has health care.

What a poorly worded question. Unless it was purposely suggesting there was no health care before the government stepped in.

It is a poorly worded question. Of course universal health care is desired. Everyone who needs health care should have access to it.

The real question is: Do you want high quality health care at affordable prices or poor quality health care at a very expensive cost?

It seems that most people want poor quality at high prices because it is 'free' or 'no cost to them' which is an outright lie. The 'free' health care is much more expensive than what the free market could deliver... the 'free' part is like the inflation tax... the true costs are cleverly hidden.

The free market will deliver high quality health care at affordable prices while government health care will deliver poor quality care at very expensive prices.

[Working Poor]

Look at the crashing EU for your answers...

[XNavyNuke]

Nay. Look to the histories of the VA and Bureau of Indian Affairs/Indian Health Service. It is a history replete with examples of horrendous care, lack of innovation, unauthorized human experimentation, and eugenics.

XNN

[acptulsa]

I don't know which side of this debate you're supposed to be on. I don't know of any good books on the subject myself, or even any good numbers. If you just want numbers, there are statistics to support both sides. Since Nation A is always different from Nation B, numbers are easy to cook. Find two countries about the same size, one with socialized medicine and one without, and make sure half the population of the one are farmers and half the population of the other are coal miners. The nation of coal miners will look worse no matter what.

I'd tackle the anti- side, if I had the choice. I'd make sure I had thoroughly cooked numbers to refute their thoroughly cooked numbers, because they have cooked numbers. There are enough skewed stats on both sides. But I'd make the thrust of my argument liberty, not money. The money question just gives your neighbors a financial incentive to poke through your kitchen cabinets and hang you for having anything in them from Karo syrup to frying oil. Talk about how it makes your health the government's business, then get some treatise on good health from the 1950s and read portions of it. Make the case that liberty would be difficult and demonization unavoidable when the scientists are recommending red meat one minute and saying it will give you a heart attack the next minute. Contrast the diet of a bodybuilder with the diet of a supermodel. Two paragons of fitness; two completely different diets.

'One size fits all' is an anathema to liberty. Always.

Nay. Look to the histories of the VA and Bureau of Indian Affairs/Indian Health Service. It is a history replete with examples of horrendous care, lack of innovation, unauthorized human experimentation, and eugenics.

XNN

Or the Soviets. Or the Nazis. Or freaking England. Horror stories abound. Eugenics is a strong argument, and if you go there you had better go in with your eugenics argument bulletproof, because it will be met with arguments that they aren't talking about what happens if and when the 'mad scientists' get put in charge, but if it's run the way its supposed to. The BIA and Tuskegee are good to use because that crap happened right here in the US of A. If you argue eugenics, you must show how the fiscal stake in your health I mentioned will lead to eugenics naturally, and unavoidably. Show how right now, right here, smokers and fat people are being demonized and Obamacare isn't even in effect yet.

[Origanalist]

http://mises.org/daily/3643

http://mises.org/community/forums/p/31861/495307.aspx

http://mises.org/journals/fm/june10.pdf

[cajuncocoa]

Nay.

[fisharmor]

This is a personal favorite.
http://mises.org/daily/4276

Also, you should research mandates. Insurance is expensive for a multitude of reasons, but the most comprehendable reason is the mandates.
My wife and I are both required to carry coverage for abortions. And I am required to be covered for hysterectomies.

Now I just checked, and I have balls, and I'm not a hermaphrodite, so I can say with 100% certainty that I will never, ever have an abortion or a hysterectomy.
But thanks to government meddling in health care, I'm covered when I need one!


Also, I think this is interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hospitallers
The very word "hospital" is used as it is today because of a group of medieval charity workers.

Etymologically, that's what a "hospital" is - a place where one receives charity.
If statists want to take over healthcare, they should get their own word for it.

[dean.engelhardt]

The U.S. Universal Healthcare question is a quirky acedemic question. The two-party system is controlled by lobbyist including insurance companies and drugmakers. The only way we could go to a universal coverage system is if these groups could leverage more profit. That would mean higher cost to the consumer and less availability. Even if other countries are running Universal Healthcare systems that out perfroms healthcare in the U.S., there is no way the U.S. can emulate it.

[Origanalist]

Now I just checked, and I have balls, and I'm not a hermaphrodite, so I can say with 100% certainty that I will never, ever have an abortion or a hysterectomy.

Never say never, science !

[UMULAS]

The U.S. Universal Healthcare question is a quirky acedemic question. The two-party system is controlled by lobbyist including insurance companies and drugmakers. The only way we could go to a universal coverage system is if these groups could leverage more profit. That would mean higher cost to the consumer and less availability. Even if other countries are running Universal Healthcare systems that out perfroms healthcare in the U.S., there is no way the U.S. can emulate it.

Do you have proof that the two party system is involved with lobbyists to profit money from health care?

[acptulsa]

Do you have proof that the two party system is involved with lobbyists to profit money from health care?

I've even seen AARP reports on the huge percentage of political campaign cash that comes from Big Pharma. Do your homework.

[osan]

I'm in the national forensic league and the Lincoln Douglas issue for the next two months is "should the United States have universal health care".

Since I am in the RPF, specifically in economics subject, you guys probably might know a lot more on the disadvantages, sources, documentaries, and austrian think tanks. Any documentaries, videos, books, that I should look at in the matter?

Go to mises.org and start reading any basic treatise on Austrian economics. Read some of Rothbard's essays on liberty. Then go to freedomisobvious.blogspot.com for an explanation of what constitutes proper and rightful freedom. If you cannot find your answers between these three, you need to major in something else. 1/2

[Origanalist]

Do you have proof that the two party system is involved with lobbyists to profit money from health care?

Shirley, you can't be serious. Me thinks you're being facetious or just lazy.

[osan]

The United States already has health care.

What a poorly worded question. Unless it was purposely suggesting there was no health care before the government stepped in.

D00d, give the kid a break and read between the lines a little. I am confidently certain that by "universal healthcare" be meant government issued "free" systems such as BammyCare and not universally accessible private brands.

[Elwar]

The expected approach for the "Nay" side is to show how poorly run government health care is or pointing to cases of private health care that works. The opposition will expect this, and that is how most of the answers so far have framed the argument.

They would not expect an argument based upon the essential belief in liberty and the fact that every human owns their own body and that by forcing someone to do something they do not want to do, for whatever good intentions, is immoral and wrong.

Check out sources based upon our inherent god given rights. Check out this: http://www.isil.org/resources/philos...ty-english.swf

Look to Socrates and Aristotle for the fundamental philosophies of being a free person.

Approach it from that angle and your opponent will have no response prepared.

[Steven Douglas]

Funny how the term "Health Care" invariably slips past everyone unquestioned, as if we all know and understand exactly what that means. No wonder that, without an ounce of critical thought, it can then be just as easily preceded by the word "Universal", as if we also know what that means.

The entire concept of health care in the United States, approached almost entirely as an aggregate problem, is an utter farce. There is no such thing as anything that approaches the ideal that the proponents of so-called "Universal Health Care" are advocating without a critical examination of market principles in other than macroeconomic terms. Politicians are not trying to figure out "how to make health care affordable", because they are for the most part ignorant of the protectionism and other flagrant free market violations already in place, without being questioned, just as they are mostly ignorant of their own culpability that made all levels of health care in the United States artificially unaffordable in the first place. They are accepting of the costs, trying instead to figure out the "fairest" (or most efficient) ways to get everyone to pay them, with a focus on insurance, and premiums, not health care.

If you want to get to a problem, go to the roots. Market distortions and aberrations almost always are rooted in state-enforced protectionism in one form or another. There are oligopolistic de facto "legal tender-like" aspects to health care in the U.S., no different in principle than exists with the Federal Reserve and the thoroughly hijacked currency it counterfeits. If you want to know the problem with monetary systems, learn about the banking, the history of the Fed, and the role that academia played, and continues to play, in that Little Shop of Monetary Horrors plant that was seeded in 1913. Likewise, if you want to get to the core problems that made health care in the United States behave contrary to the rest of the market, and wholly unlike a free market, explore the protectionist history of medicine, beginning with the elitists in medicine who founded the utterly protectionist American Medical Association in 1847, along with the role that academia has played all along, and continues to play, in that Enormous Shop of Health Care Horrors.

There is a reason doctors no longer make house calls, but once did. It has nothing to do with "the rising costs of health care". It has nothing to do with technological advances -- as proved by the highly competitive high tech industry, where costs and prices and go down, not up, with advancements.

[acptulsa]

Oh, and pro and con are spelled 'yea' and 'nay'.

We could do your homework for you, but if you don't buckle down yourself you'll still flunk.

I used to prepare for debates at the library with my nose in a hardcover periodical index. If you're too lazy to use a search engine, I don't know what you expect from me. I can give you angles to use which, as Elwar pointed out, will help you catch your opponent off guard and unprepared. But I can't develop your memory, and I can't teach you how to think critically.

And I won't do your research for you. Not my grade, son.

[presence]

I'm off to the hospital for $3000 worth of drugs for my disabled kid this morning. He has an ultra rare bleeding disorder. I was there 2 days ago and 2 weeks ago for the same. I'll be back in another 2 days for another $3000 treatment. He's 3, we've probably long since passed $100k and are on to $1/4m. No meds? He bleeds to death.

I'm a carpenter, I make $200 on a good day, about a 1/4 of every month I'm at home enforcing bed rest to help him recover and save everyone money.

At 3, he's learning to read and has single digit addition and subtraction under control.

I don't know what the right answer is. I've met a lot of million dollar babies in hematology and oncology. If I could be emperor, I'd declare state royalties on oil and mineral commonwealth to cover the cost of universal health care. Generally, I do not believe in the wisdom of "welfare" for groups. I think there is greater wisdom in "citizen's dividends" for all.

just some perspective on this issue,

presence

[fisharmor]

They would not expect an argument based upon the essential belief in liberty and the fact that every human owns their own body and that by forcing someone to do something they do not want to do, for whatever good intentions, is immoral and wrong.

Sorry I can't rep you right now for this, excellent point.
Though I don't think you should slouch on the argument that free market medicine works! If you're painted into the corner where they're claiming only government medicine works, you should be able to fight your way out of that handily.
Look up "medical tourism".

I'm off to the hospital for $3000 worth of drugs for my disabled kid this morning.

I ain't tryin' to poke my nose into what your kid has, but out of curiosity, what is the drug?
I'd bet the rent that it's not some "ultra rare bleeding disorder only" formulation. I'm guessing it's something that has a multitude of uses, and that the market would have brought it down to cents a pill years ago if it was allowed to.

[presence]

I ain't tryin' to poke my nose into what your kid has, but out of curiosity, what is the drug?
I'd bet the rent that it's not some "ultra rare bleeding disorder only" formulation. I'm guessing it's something that has a multitude of uses, and that the market would have brought it down to cents a pill years ago if it was allowed to.

Actually, its an "ultra rare bleeding disorder only formulation". His blood is missing clotting factor IX. "0% of normal" in circulation. Blood does not clot without IX, which causes periodic (weekly/monthly) internal bleeding among other things. He gets genetically modified recombinant Factor IX via IV catheter (benefix) on demand when needed. For a while he was on a human plasma based factor replacement (alphanine); one dose took 1500 distinct blood donors, plus logistics and labs. The recombinant stuff comes from chinese hampster ovaries cells genetically modified to produce human fIX in a petri dish, plus a lot of other high tech clean room processing that I couldn't concisesly explain in 5000 words or less. Keywords alphanine, benefix, mononine. No other uses really. Many more new more expensive technologies on the frontier. I'm actually on the phone right now with his pharmacist ordering more doses. I keep about $30,000 in the fridge, the meds arrive on ice next-day. Aside from the IX, doctor's visits, and nursing care, there are other big money complications which may come with time: His grandfather had 5 artificial joints for example. Hepatitis or inhibitors are other common potential complications that could balloon costs tenfold. Knock on wood. Highly specialized technical $#@! costs money. He's bleeding into the synovial fluid in his right knee at the moment; he's due for his next dose in about an hour. I have him sitting next to me (off his feet) watching a youtube about scorpions.

[Wesker1982]

Check out chapter 2 in Rollback by Tom Woods. He has a really good part on healthcare.

Also see:

How Government Solved the Health Care Crisis, Medical Insurance that Worked — Until Government "Fixed" It
The Libertarian Three-Step Program
Socialized Healthcare vs. The Laws of Economics

These videos are really good, watch them if you have time:




Also see Hazlitt on price controls in Economics in One Lesson and Rothbard in Man, Economy, and State. When the government forces something to be "free", it has an effect of being a minimum price control, a price of $0. Government increases demand while simultaneously restricting supply... this equals shortages. No amount of wishing or legislation can create medical goods and services out of thin air.

[jbauer]

I'm going to get beat up here for saying this but:

We already have socialized healthcare and have had so for decades. We already take care of the sick, elderly and poor and illegals off the dime paid but those stupid enough to pay into a system that is flawed. The $700 Billion obama is taking out of medicare to fund obamacare is a fraud. All they did is lower the payment % rates on some things to providers. The providers in turn will increase their stated rate or squeeze it out of the non medicaid and medicare crowd. Healthcare in the USA is really F'ed up and the sooner we realize that we're NEVER EVER (barring colapse of America) going to have a free market type healthcare system the sooner we can work on making the one we have as effective and efficent as possible.

On some issues its better to punt then continually go for it on forth down. This is one of them. Obamacare is here to stay whether you like it or not so lets make the best we can with what we got.

[Bohner]

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5

[dean.engelhardt]

Do you have proof that the two party system is involved with lobbyists to profit money from health care?

+ rep for the laugh. In case this was not a joke:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=HCR

there are 1,728 registered lobbyist in the healthcare industry.

[acptulsa]

+ rep for the laugh. In case this was not a joke:

http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/issuesum.php?id=HCR

there are 1,728 registered lobbyist in the healthcare industry.

What are you giving him rep for? Some of us did half his homework for him, and haven't gotten so much as a rep in return...

[dean.engelhardt]

Link

In addition to campaign contributions to elected officials and candidates, companies, labor unions, and other organizations spend billions of dollars each year to lobby Congress and federal agencies. Some special interests retain lobbying firms, many of them located along Washington's legendary K Street; others have lobbyists working in-house. We've got totals spent on lobbying, beginning in 1998, for everyone from AAI Corp. to Zurich Financial.

You can use the options below to search through our database in several ways: search by name for a company, lobbying firm or individual lobbyist; search for the total spending by a particular industry; view the interests that lobbied a particular government agency; or search for lobbying on a general issue or specific piece of legislation.

Total Lobbying Spending
1998 $1.44 Billion
1999 $1.44 Billion
2000 $1.56 Billion
2001 $1.64 Billion
2002 $1.82 Billion
2003 $2.04 Billion
2004 $2.18 Billion
2005 $2.42 Billion
2006 $2.61 Billion
2007 $2.85 Billion
2008 $3.30 Billion
2009 $3.50 Billion
2010 $3.55 Billion
2011 $3.33 Billion
2012 $1.68 Billion

Number of Lobbyists*
1998 10,408
1999 12,937
2000 12,537
2001 11,833
2002 12,118
2003 12,916
2004 13,168
2005 14,072
2006 14,508
2007 14,849
2008 14,226
2009 13,806
2010 12,975
2011 12,714
2012 11,702

[dean.engelhardt]

What are you giving him rep for? Some of us did half his homework for him, and haven't gotten so much as a rep in return...

I'm a give not a taker. + rep