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Should healthcare be free?

Debate Information

This is a poll.
  1. Live Poll

    Should healthcare be free?

    10 votes
    1. Yes.
      30.00%
    2. No.
      70.00%



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    Arguments


  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    The first question to answer here is: "Can healthcare be free?" The answer is a sounding "no", so the question must rather be not "Should healthcare be free?", but "Should healthcare be public-funded or private-funded?"

    Strictly speaking, in terms of resources, nothing is free. Even oxygen is not free: it might seem that you are not paying anything for taking a breath, but your body wears out with each breath, its sustainability drops with time, with the ultimate outcome being death to which this factor somewhat contributes - so you pay for oxygen with your health. 

    For private healthcare, you pay directly. For public healthcare, you pay via sending the money to the government, that then pays for your healthcare with that. Do you get more than you spend this way, or less? In practice, unless you are unemployed and essentially survive off public welfare alone, private healthcare tends to be significantly more cost-efficient than public healthcare. 
    Zombieguy1987AlecApplesauceGeorge_Horse
  • YeshuaBoughtYeshuaBought 669 Pts   -  
    @MayCaesar You are deflecting. Answer the question.
    George_HorseZombieguy1987
  • AlecAlec 71 Pts   -  
    It should not be free.  It costs taxpayers too much money.  Poor people can get money from religious institutions, which get a lot of tithe money and other donations.  A debate I did on it is here:

    https://www.debate.org/debates/Universal-Health-Care-in-the-US/1/
  • Polaris95Polaris95 147 Pts   -  
    @Alec

    If taxpayers were to pay less for some things, e.g. Defense, then there could be room for a public healthcare system. Most countries in the world have free and/or universal healthcare, and it works better than what the US has.
    CYDdhartaZombieguy1987Applesauce
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    @YeshuaBought ;

    The question is ill-posed. Healthcare cannot be free. You could just as well ask, "Should humans be able to teleport instantly at any distance across space?"

    Assuming it somehow could be free - sure, then, at least, having free healthcare offerings alongside the non-free ones would be a no-brainer. But that would be a scenario from a parallel reality.
  • YeshuaBoughtYeshuaBought 669 Pts   -  
    @Alec No it doesn't. America spends ,pore on healthcare than other countries and people are still dying without healthcare.
  • AlecAlec 71 Pts   -  
    @ Polaris

    We need a huge defense budget to defend freedom worldwide.  If our budget for the military shrunk too much, then South Korea and Japan would be invaded by China, costing about 18 million lives of civilians, and ISIS 2.0 or something similar would exist in the middle east, since there is no USA to stop them from existing.
    Zombieguy1987
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -   edited October 2018
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditure_share_of_GDP 

    The US is not even in the top-15 in terms of military spending as a fraction of GDP. Given that the US is by far the biggest participant of international conflicts, decreasing its military budget seems unreasonable.

    https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS 

    The US military spending is a bit over 3% of its GDP - with the world's average being around 2%, the US is not significantly above the average, while orders of magnitude above the average in terms of involvement in conflicts.

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditure-as-gdp-percentage-in-oecd-countries/ 

    However, in terms of the fraction of GDP spent on healthcare, the US is by far the largest spender in the world, spending 17.2%, with the second nation on the list (Switzerland) spending whooping 4.8% less.

    ---

    Bottom line here is: first, the US does not need to spend more on healthcare at the expense of the military spending, and second, the sheer amount of spending does not mean much in terms of effectiveness. You can spend all of the budget you have on healthcare, and still arrive at something that does not work well.

    Zombieguy1987
  • AmpersandAmpersand 858 Pts   -  
    MayCaesar said:
    The first question to answer here is: "Can healthcare be free?" The answer is a sounding "no", so the question must rather be not "Should healthcare be free?", but "Should healthcare be public-funded or private-funded?"

    Strictly speaking, in terms of resources, nothing is free. Even oxygen is not free: it might seem that you are not paying anything for taking a breath, but your body wears out with each breath, its sustainability drops with time, with the ultimate outcome being death to which this factor somewhat contributes - so you pay for oxygen with your health. 

    For private healthcare, you pay directly. For public healthcare, you pay via sending the money to the government, that then pays for your healthcare with that. Do you get more than you spend this way, or less? In practice, unless you are unemployed and essentially survive off public welfare alone, private healthcare tends to be significantly more cost-efficient than public healthcare. 
    The question is obviously about payment at point of use. Don't use pedantry to avoid engaging with the question.

    Healthcare should be free. Caring for others is a basic moral duty in pretty much every worthwhile philosophical and religious path.

    Not only that but state run healthcare is massively more efficient than bloated private sector insurance healthcare options. The USA is literally one of the most inefficient nations in the world  on healthcare due to its redundant competing insurance options.
    Polaris95CYDdharta
  • JoesephJoeseph 652 Pts   -  
    Yes it should be free and personally I don’t pay for it where I live and why should I ? The average human pays enough in taxes over a lifetime and free health care should be a basic hunan right .


    Polaris95CYDdharta
  • Polaris95Polaris95 147 Pts   -  
    @Alec

    But it's not the US's job to be the police of the world. We have the UN for that right? 
    Zombieguy1987
  • AlecAlec 71 Pts   -  
    The US is a better maker of world peace then the UN because it has the military to do so.  It protects SK and Japan from Communist China and NK.  If the UN did it instead, it would lose to China and SK and Japan would become Communist and millions of innocent lives would get lost due to the communist regime.
    Zombieguy1987
  • YeshuaBoughtYeshuaBought 669 Pts   -  
    Joeseph said:
    Yes it should be free and personally I don’t pay for it where I live and why should I ? The average human pays enough in taxes over a lifetime and free health care should be a basic hunan right .


    I am glad you have healthcare. I do too. Why do so many prolifers oppose free healthcare?
  • MayCaesarMayCaesar 5965 Pts   -  
    Once again, there is no "free healthcare". There is public-funded healthcare, which means that the payment for the services is given not upon receiving them, but in advance and in a communal way. You pay for the healthcare services you might need in the future, and everyone else pays along.

    What are the drawbacks? Aside from the governmental innate inability to do absolutely anything with more than, say, 10% efficiency, there is also the fact that many people end up paying for the services they do not need. For example, aside from dental services (which are rarely covered by universal healthcare anyway), I have not needed to see a doctor a single time in the last ~15 years - yet in the universal healthcare system, I am still supposed to put my hard-earned money out, just so people I have not even met can satisfy their medical needs at my expense.

    Paying for something one does not need is the ultimate instance of inefficient spending, and it a sure way to waste the capital that could instead be put to a much better use, such as investment into hi-tech companies that then produce technologies that absolutely everyone can find use for.

    Just like I am not forced to give some money to every beggar on the street, I should not be forced to pay for any service I personally do not need. To say otherwise would be to advocate for the authoritarian system, in which the needs of some overshadow the freedoms of everyone. And such systems should not exist in the modern world - even though they do.
    Zombieguy1987Applesauce
  • Zombieguy1987Zombieguy1987 471 Pts   -  
    Alec said:
    @ Polaris
    We need a huge defense budget to defend freedom worldwide.  

    The U.S didn't defend freedom in Korea

    Or Vietnam...

    Or Afghanistan...

    In fact, after World War 2, the U.S military hasn't be successful in the following wars
    Korean War (Cease fire) 

    Vietnam (Defeat) 

    Afghanistan (Ongoing)

    Iraq (Pulled out and now ISIS took over)

    That's 0 victories, 1 loss and 3 cease fires/ongoing wars since WW2!

    If our budget for the military shrunk too much, then South Korea and Japan would be invaded by China, costing about 18 million lives of civilians, 

    Ok, if China did invade South Korea or Japan, the U.S and NATO would embargo China and their allies and the Chinese economy would crash, since they rely on exporting stuff world wide, and you know... World War 3

    and ISIS 2.0 or something similar would exist in the middle east, 

    ISIS 2.o does exist... It's called Saudi Aribia 

    since there is no USA to stop them from existing.

    mmmm… No.

    The U.S has been occupying Afghanistan since 2001, and the Taliban are still a thing... you know that?

    They still are terrorizing the U.S military with terror attacks. You know, the STRONGEST military in the world!

    And the U.S's allies in Europe are being terrorized too... Maybe, if the U.S didn't destabilize the Middle East, this situation could've been avoided

  • Zombieguy1987Zombieguy1987 471 Pts   -  
    Alec said:
    The US is a better maker of world peace then the UN because it has the military to do so. 

    Right, because the U.S isn't the reason they're stuck in a now 18 year war they'll never win.

    Or cause an increase in tensions with Russia and China

     It protects SK and Japan from Communist China and NK.  If the UN did it instead

    The United Nations is an organization, not a country! They can't just focus on the Korean Peninsula. 

    It would lose to China and SK and Japan would become Communist and millions of innocent lives would get lost due to the communist regime.

    Once again. If China invaded South Korea and Japan, the U.S and NATO can just hold China's economy hostage, which is a reason why China doesn't want to start World War 3. The U.S can embargo China, and then their economy dies.


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