Instigator / Pro
Pinkfreud08's avatar
2
Pinkfreud08
1614
rating
17
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Topic

Will more socialization benefit society?

Status
Finished

All stages have been completed. The voting points distribution and the result are presented below.

Arguments points
0
6
Sources points
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4
Spelling and grammar points
2
2
Conduct points
0
2

With 2 votes and 12 points ahead, the winner is ...

Wylted
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Economics
Time for argument
Two days
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Open voting
Voting period
Two weeks
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Four points
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Contender / Con
Wylted's avatar
14
Wylted
1448
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Description
~ 910 / 5,000

Pro: Benefit

Con: Harmful

Due to the nature of this topic, I do not have to prove why anything is moral, You have to prove to me why it is immoral. I will be providing a few reasons why more socialization would be moral however the BoP rests mostly on pro. However, before we begin I would like to define Socialism and the Redistribution of wealth.

Socialism: A state at which they redistribute wealth which is used for the collective good.

Redistribution of Wealth: Redistribution of income and redistribution of wealth are respectively the transfer of income and of wealth (including physical property) from some individuals to others by means of a social mechanism.

Tiwaz is banned from participating in this debate due to him continually pulling red herrings, dodging questions and points, and attempting to character assassinate several people.

If he accepts he completely forfeits the debate.

Round 1
Pinkfreud08's avatar
Pinkfreud08
Pro
Alright finally got an opponent! 

- Looks at their profile - 

Great a troll who's lost 14 debates, doesn't take debates seriously and believes the world is flat...

Well, whatever I'll do my best and I hope my opponent doesn't troll this debate. 

Then again me saying that will probably make him want to do it more but whatever, let's begin!

QUESTIONS: 

Before we begin I understand my opponent is a libertarian however I want specifics. 

- What's your position on the minimum wage? 

- What's your position on mass immigration and illegal immigration? 

- What's your opinion on the redistribution of wealth? 

- Are you a conservative or anarcho libertarian? 

These questions will be important for the next round. 

Let's begin with too socialistic policies that would benefit the USA. 

UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE

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.

Quality:

- 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. The US according to healthsystemtracker.org and Business insider, Wasn't even in the top 10 in life expectancy compared to it's higher counterparts with universal healthcare such as Japan, Switzerland, And Australia. 

- 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. However, Two countries with mixed systems do perform just as well as the United States does, So this seems to indicate that a private healthcare system is not necessary for short specialist wait times. 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? Plus statistically according too,  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. 

This is just one example of what a more socialistic economy would benefit society. 

Once my opponent answers the questions I will bring up other examples such as education, collective bargaining, and heavier redistribution however I simply want to see what my opponent's stances are so that I don't waste time. 

Anyways here are my sources for the universal healthcare portion, 


Wylted's avatar
Wylted
Con
Framework

Pro has a hard time making clear resolutions.  Wish to remedy that. The 200 comments to the debate has made what Pro wants to debate very clear. He offered a simple descriptive definition of socialism. The definition can apply to a lot of things that nobody would consider socialism, so here is another definition that does not seek to replace pro’s but to merely elaborate upon it. 

Socialism- any of the various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

Pro asked me a series of questions that are  irrelevant. I decided not to answer them. My personal opinions are not relevant to the debate only the position I am taking in the debate, but for anyone curious answers are in the comments. 

I will be using the following structure to make this debate flow easier. 

R1- Main Arguments
R2- Rebuttals
R3- Counter Rebuttals
R4- Closing

Arguments

The reason for the logical syllogisms  is because it helps opponents who have a hard time systematically organizing their thoughts. When I do rebuttals, I will also try to help judges organize my opponents sporadic thoughts by organizing them into simple syllogisms. 

Premise 1- economic freedom causes a higher standard of living.

Premise 2- Socialist policies are antithetical to economic freedom

Contention 1- socialist policies are responsible for a lower standard of living.

P1 Economic Freedom Causes a Higher Standard of Living

Countries  more economically free on the economic freedom index (A measure of how free a country is economically) such as Australia, New Zealand and the Swedes, are places we would all like to visit. Even without going into the numbers, we know intuitively these are awesome places that we would love to experience. The bottom of the economic freedom index consists of countries that are a nightmare to live in such as Cuba, Venezuela and North Korea. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

Even without any of the following details, it should be obvious to us countries with more economic freedom are better to live in. Some may argue that this is merely a coincidence the best countries have more economic freedom than the worst ones. Perhaps my opponent will argue that Economic freedom is a response to the standard of living and not the cause of it. Perhaps Venezuela's socialist policies are a response to poverty and not the cause of it. Perhaps Australia only adopted policies allowing their people to have this sort of freedom as a response to their higher standard of living.

However the statistical data does not agree. Let’s examine some data that shows that not only does economic freedom directly correlate to the prosperity of a country, but some stats that also show it most likely causes more prosperity than would be achieved through decreasing economic freedom through things such as becoming more socialist. The following chart shows how much opportunity people have for entrepreneurism in more economically free countries. An activity that improves society by incentivizing cures for diseases or even by solving more mundane problems by giving us such things as cat litter, toilet paper and the personal computer. 

 https://www.heritage.org/index/images/book/2019/Chapter4/EF%202019%20CHAPTER%204%20CHARTS-1.png

When you look at the numbers for how much the average person can spend on essential items such as food to feed their family and look at how economically free a country is we can see that more economic freedom equals more ability to feed your family. See chart below.

https://www.heritage.org/index/images/book/2019/Chapter4/EF%202019%20CHAPTER%204%20CHARTS-2.png

Repressed economies (lower on the index. Less capitalistic and more socialist) have an average purchasing power of $7000 while capitalistic/free countries have a purchasing power of over $60,000. 

Some people may argue that, sure economic freedom is good for the country it is applied to, because it exploits 3rd world countries. If this is true than increased economic freedom should have a negative overall impact on the world, however the data doesn’t agree with that assertion. The chart below shows a drop in poverty and increase in the world’s GDP that coincides with you guessed it,more economic freedom. This increase in GDP occurs before not after an increase in economic freedom.

https://www.heritage.org/index/images/book/2019/Chapter4/EF%202019%20CHAPTER%204%20CHARTS-3.png

Here is what an article posted by The Heritage Foundation has to say about the statistics they collected;

Unquestionably, the free-market system that is rooted in the principles of economic freedom—empowerment of the individual, nondiscrimination, and open competition—has fueled unprecedented economic growth. As Chart 3 illustrates, over the life of the Index, as the global economy has moved toward greater economic freedom, the world economy has doubled in size. This progress has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and the global poverty rate has declined by two-thirds.
Opening the gates of prosperity to ever more people around the world, economic freedom has made our globe a profoundly better place. More people are living better lives than ever before. Clearly, this monumental reduction in global poverty is an achievement that should inspire celebration of the free-market system, deeper understanding of its dynamics, and greater commitment to its promotion.
https://www.heritage.org/index/book/chapter-4


The less economically free countries seem to be more repressed politically, more likely to be under a dictator and less politically free. It is as if when somebody has more money from the wealth created from shunning socialism and embracing a free economy they also have more power to influence the system in a more fair way as can be shown in the following chart. https://www.heritage.org/index/images/book/2019/Chapter4/EF%202019%20CHAPTER%204%20CHARTS-8.png

It turns out that when a country embraces economic freedom, we can see that redistribution of wealth becomes unnecessary as it creates both more upward mobility as well as a more even distribution of wealth. https://www.heritage.org/index/images/book/2019/Chapter4/EF%202019%20CHAPTER%204%20CHARTS-9.png

Many Marxists were originally concerned that if communist and socialist forces seized the means of power, that they would be reluctant to distribute the wealth equitably and instead horde it for themselves and their allies, which seems to be the case when any attempt to install socialism is applied. In summary= more socialist policies equals a less even distribution of resources. From a pragmatic point of view my opponent’s policies would actually backfire and do the opposite of what he intends. It’s nice he has good intentions, but he should research this stuff before assuming his good intentions will have good results and work on supporting policies that actually work at achieving his aims.

P2- Socialist policies are antithetical to economic freedom

The economic freedom index, measures 12 criteria to determine a country's economic freedom. The following criteria are what is relevant to the debate. government spending, tax burden, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom. The Economic Freedom Index considers every part of the criteria important, and since the higher the score, the more likely you are to be a country with a positive present and future. Less poverty, better government, lower crime and a higher standard of living in just about every way possible. Let’s go down this list one by one.https://www.heritage.org/index/about

Government Spending

I don’t think this is debatable the more the government takes over the means of production in each sector the more it spends, since the government is not in the business of making profits, but of providing services. My opponent admits a socialist healthcare plan would cost the government over 7 trillion a year. This would put America even closer to the bottom of the Economic freedom index and closer to being just like Venezuela or North Korea. More government spending as a result of socialist policies is not even debatable.

Taxes

Obviously the government has to get the money they spend from somewhere, so tax rates will increase proportional to how much money is needed to fund socialist programs. 

Business/Labor Freedom

Socialist programs such as universal healthcare require all kinds of new regulations that hamper the freedom of businesses and employees. This is obvious for healthcare, but can be seen in other industries as well such as the police force which has very strict rules for how police behave which limits employee/labor freedom and in some areas even unionized labor is banned from government jobs restricting employee labor even more. OSHA a socialist program to ensure employee safety does a lot to get in the way of business freedom with tons of regulations, The FDA another socialist program causes the process of getting a drug to market so expensive that only a handful of billion dollar companies can compete. 

Monetary Freedom

Monetary freedom has to do with the stability of money. When a socialist country has to raise funds for new programs they will raise taxes, but they also use another strategy which is to simply print money. This is especially true in Democratic countries where citizens are typically opposed to having smaller paychecks.

C1 Socialist Policies Lower Standard of Living

The conclusion is derived from the fact that the economic freedom index is a good predictor for how high the standard of living is for citizens of a country. Socialist policies cause a country to become lower in the economic freedom index. The effects of which were proven in the P1 arguments. I look forward to offering rebuttals for my opponent’s arguments in Round 2.

Round 2
Pinkfreud08's avatar
Pinkfreud08
Pro
“ Socialism- any of the various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism “ 

  • Firstly I agree with most of this definition, however, an integral part of socialism is the redistribution of wealth and resources which isn’t present in this definition but is present in other definitions. 
  • I’d also like to add how dishonest it’s to change definitions during the debate and not in the comment section or via PM. I’d ask for voters to please consider this in the conduct category. 

If my opponent has further disagreements regarding the definitions I ask he/she messaged me via PM or in the comment section rather than in the middle of the debate, anyways moving right along. 

“ Pro asked me a series of questions that are irrelevant. I decided not to answer them. My personal opinions are not relevant to the debate only the position I am taking in the debate, but for anyone, curious answers are in the comments.” 

  • For anyone reading this, Con’s personal beliefs are very much relevant to this debate as we’ll see later on in my argument. 

“Countries more economically free on the economic freedom index (A measure of how free a country is economical) such as Australia, New Zealand, and the Swedes, are places we would all like to visit. Even without going into the numbers, we know intuitively these are awesome places that we would love to experience. The bottom of the economic freedom index consists of countries that are a nightmare to live in such as Cuba, Venezuela, and North Korea. https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking” 

  • I don’t see a point in this statement, we aren’t trying to destroy economic freedom as found in dictatorships, we’re trying to create a fair distribution and have stricter business regulations. 
  • We aren’t trying to restrict freedom of trade unreasonably as my opponent is trying to make out. 
  • Also, the countries that ironically my opponent sites are actually countries with higher levels of socialization which disproves my opponent's point since if truly more socialistic policies decreased economic freedom than why are these countries ranked so highly? 

The next section my opponent sites statistics to back this poor hypothesis up which don’t need to be debunked since I already proved the hypothesis to be wrong. Therefore we’re going to ignore the statistics. 

Also another point I’d like to add, my opponent does little to elaborate as to how these countries are socialistic. 

If we actually delve into these countries it appears they aren’t. 

Firstly, here's the definition of fascism for the next segment. 

“ In fascism, the people are looked at as a bundle — one body that must be controlled by the government with absolute force. There’s no option to vote, no chance to impeach a leader, and no freedom to stand up against the governing body.” 

  • Which ideology between socialism and fascism argues for the dictatorship policies Cuba and North Korea exert? Fascism. 
  • Which ideology is anti-democratic? Fascism. 

Also, this point is irrelevant since I am arguing for democratic socialism, not a dictatorship. Under these definitions, the countries my opponent has cited are more closely related to fascism than socialism and are irrelevant since I am arguing for social democracy and not a dictatorship. 

While these countries do label themselves as socialist, well north Korea states they’re a democratic republic so this logic fails. People label themselves as something all the time but that doesn’t make it true. 

Nextly, 
“ P2- Socialist policies are antithetical to economic freedom “ 

  • Very obviously not the case since if this was the case then more socialized countries in Europe and Australia wouldn’t be rated high. 
  • If my opponent is than going to argue, 
“ Well that means these countries aren’t socialist “ 

Well, these countries have high minimum wages either through collective bargaining or governmental, high government spending, high tax rates, and socialized medicine and education. 

“ My opponent admits a socialist healthcare plan would cost the government over 7 trillion a year. This would put America even closer to the bottom of the Economic freedom index and closer to being just like Venezuela or North Korea. More government spending as a result of socialist policies is not even debatable.” 

  • My opponent has either intentionally or unintentionally missed the point I was making. 
To give the benefit of the doubt I’ll explain it again source in the previous argument. 

Nationalized healthcare costs 7 trillion, private costs 7.7 trillion, therefore, the private option is more expensive. 

This is a simple concept, I spend 1,500 dollars on private healthcare. Now that’s nationalized I have to pay 1,000 dollars. 

However now since I don’t have to pay for private I save 500 dollars. 

If my opponent ignores this again, he/she is intentionally misrepresenting the point and he/she should be docked a conduct point.

“ Socialist programs such as universal healthcare require all kinds of new regulations that hamper the freedom of businesses and employees.” 

  • Ok how please elaborate. 
Do you not believe businesses are helped when there are more workers due to fewer workers dying, more healthy workers, and an increasement of productivity? 

Statistics to these are found in my previous argument. 

“ OSHA a socialist program to ensure employee safety does a lot to get in the way of business freedom with tons of regulations, The FDA another socialist program causes the process of getting a drug to market so expensive that only a handful of billion dollar companies can compete.” 

  • Ok please elaborate on how these regulations are specifically hurting businesses. 
Explain how employee safety isn’t a priority? Same with regulations on the drug market which keep corporations in check from charging 4,000 dollars for a life-saving drug which only costs 40 dollars to make?

SOURCES: 



NOTE, sources for healthcare are found in the previous argument thank you. 

ALSO, if I've accidentally left out sources for my claims please inform me and I'll gladly provide sources. 
Wylted's avatar
Wylted
Con
Pro argued for socialized healthcare this round to support to more socialism. This round will focus on that. My R3 will be for addressing most of R2, but it is necessary to address a few things from it. 

Definitions

Here is what pro says;

“I’d also like to add how dishonest it’s to change definitions during the debate and not in the comment section or via PM. I’d ask for voters to please consider this in the conduct category.”

This is laughable for two reasons. First I made it very clear that I was not changing the definition, that I was merely adding to it. Here is where I say, exactly that;

“here is another definition that does not seek to replace pro’s but to merely elaborate upon it”

The conduct point petition is ridiculous. My opponent insulted me by calling me a troll and mocked my debate record, which was mostly a result of my long torturous bout with depression. If anyone deserves a conduct point. It’s me.

Overall Lens

This debate needs to be looked at by zooming out and using the lens I provide. It is quite possible for a socialist type policy to have benefits in the sector of society it is applied to, but still be bad for society as a whole. If my arguments show socialized healthcare is a negative in terms of healthcare fail, we still need to analyze whether the argument I presented stands. If it does stand we cannot assume a benefit in one spot is worth having a negative impact. in all other segments of society at once

Overall Argument

I can sum up my opponent’s arguments fairly using a syllogism this way. 

P1- universal healthcare has more positives than negatives

P2- universal healthcare would require/be an increase in “socialization”

C1- More socialization would overall be beneficial to society

I agree with p2. Universal healthcare does qualify as an increase in socialization. However I think the argument is flawed overall. The conclusion does not conclude from the premises. It can absolutely be true that universal health-care can benefit that section of society but be an overall detriment to society as we can deduce through logic or through my round one arguments. P1 will be disputed below. 

Life Expectancy

Pro states the following;

“This would provide a number of benefits such as higher life expectancy”

My opponent’s sources lacks evidence for some statistics showing Americans have a lower life expectancy than some countries with socialized medicine. We actually have a pretty good healthcare system in America and the problems it does have can be fixed by deregulation of it and other industries that affect it. Other explanations for the lifespan of Americans is the fact that 37% of Americans are fat. Universal healthcare isn’t going to fix how shitty the American diet is or the lifestyle decisions that result in poor health. Obesity is linked to higher Cancer, diabetes, and heart disease rates as well as a lot of other problems. I'm not sure why my opponent thinks that lack of socialized medicine is what is causing lower lifespans. https://obesity.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=006032

Americans also seem to be more likely to be the victims of violent crimes that end in death, though being safer from violent crime in general. https://www.criminaljusticedegreehub.com/violent-crime-us-abroad/

I don’t see a link between life expectancy and socialized medicine, that can’t be better explained from other things such as the fat Americans are fat, are more likely to murder and be murdered than what happens in other wealthy nations and are also more likely to die from diseases that are a direct result of being fat. 

Pro's assertions that Americans would be more productive (many of us are already hurting our mental and physical health by embracing the cult of productivity) is simply unproven and as it stands is a bare assertion. Bare assertions should not be taken as fact, and are in fact are a logical fallacy. http://www.toolkitforthinking.com/critical-thinking/anatomy-of-an-argument/deductive-logic-arguments/bare-assertion-fallacy

He makes the same fallacy by claiming socialized medicine will somehow make people happier. Bare assertions should be easily dismissed.

Deaths from uninsured

Pro makes the says;

“45,000 people die from privatized healthcare model, this is equivalent to .... 9/11.”


My opponent did not cite this statistic, but I did hunt it down and while I take issue with the number itself, I won’t dispute it too much. The problem is that the number alone means nothing unless we compare it to how many lives would be lost if America adopted socialized medicine. 

We don’t have to get into the nitty gritty of the math here because a writer by the name of Mahdi Barakat has already did the research and ran the numbers for us. https://fee.org/articles/if-american-healthcare-kills-european-healthcare-kills-more/

Here is how the numbers add up.

“A study by the Fraser Institute titled The Effect of Wait Times on Mortality in Canada estimated that “increases in wait times for medically necessary care in Canada between 1993 and 2009 may have resulted in between 25,456 and 63,090 (with a middle value of 44,273) additional deaths among females.” Adjusting for the difference in populations (the US has about 9 times as many people), that middle value inflates to an estimated 400,000 additional deaths among females over a 16 year period. This translates to an estimated 25,000 additional female deaths each year if the American system were to suffer from increased mortality similar to that experienced in Canada due to increases in wait times. “

If we stopped there I would win the healthcare debate but Mahdi goes on to run some more numbers. He points out that 

“the US has significantly lower rates of 30-day stroke-induced mortality than every other OECD country, aside from Japan and Korea. OECD data suggest that the age- and sex-adjusted mortality rates within Europe would translate to tens of thousands of additional deaths in the US.
If America had the 30-day stroke-mortality rate of the UK, for example, we could expect about an additional 38,000 deaths a year. For Canada, that number would be around 43,500. And this only accounts for mortality within a month of having a stroke, which in turn accounts for only 10% of stroke-related deaths.”
 
For every 1,000 strokes in America 170 people die. The number is 280 in similar countries who have socialized medicine. 
The United States has very high cancer survival rates, much higher than countries with socialized medicine. If we use the UK survival rates this would be an additional 80,000 deaths a year with other 1st world countries using socialized medicine the additional deaths would be about 20,000 a year.
If the deaths caused by privatized medicine are 9/11 numbers, the deaths caused by socialized medicine would be more comparable to the Holocaust
Affordability
 
If healthcare is unaffordable it is because of more “socialization”. If we look at the root causes of why healthcare is unaffordable we can remove those root causes and make it affordable again. Whether the costs are 7.75 trillion or my opponents solution to the problem which has healthcare cost 7.36 trillion it is too high. 
Those costs even at 7.36 trillion would be the highest costs in the world. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2018/03/13/us-health-costs-high-jha
What started this whole mess of health care costs began back when FDR was president. He enacted socialist wage controls and taxed businesses up to 80% but did give tax breaks to them based on the benefits provided. Many employers as a way to attract talent since wages were controlled offered health insurance and with the tax break it did not really cost them much more money to do it. https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-obamacare-health-care-employers-20170224-story.html
 
Once everyone had employer paid health insurance they no longer knew what they were actually paying for a stay in the hospital. Whether the hospital charged $2000 or $200 for the stay in it still only cost the individual their same copay of maybe $50. Same problem with medicine. No matter whether the company charges $40 or $400 for a pill, your copay might be $5. 
Shane Snow explains it this way;

“ If you have health insurance through your job, you’re two layers away from the actual cost of your health care whenever you go to the doctor, hospital, or pharmacy. Between you and the price tag is 1) an insurance company; and 2) your employer.(who pays for some of your insurance)”

https://medium.com/@shanesnow/trickle-down-health-care-how-we-could-actually-fix-the-us-health-system-7614f84d0e61
 
A better plan would be getting rid of health insurance and taking perhaps half the money we use on subsidizing insurance companies directly or indirectly and diverting that to things that can actually help the healthcare in America like preventing bad diet and promoting healthy living to the masses, reducing the actual contributors to bad health such as obesity which in turn will prevent a lot of diabetes, heart disease and cancer.
Even without chopping that amount of socialization in half with the program I recommend, just the steps to discourage buying health insurance  would make Americans more aware of the real prices they are paying for healthcare forcing companies to become competitive with their prices. You might see a doctor that costs $100 an hour as opposed to one costing $250 an hour if you have no insurance and are not so far removed from knowing the prices of services. 
Conclusion
I have proven that Healthcare costs can be better controlled through less socialization as opposed to more. I have proven that private healthcare kills less people than socialized medicine, and I have proven that even if socialized medicine improves the portion it is meant to improve it is still a net detriment to society as a whole. Vote Con



Round 3
Pinkfreud08's avatar
Pinkfreud08
Pro
“ The conduct point petition is ridiculous. My opponent insulted me by calling me a troll and mocked my debate record, which was mostly a result of my long torturous bout with depression. If anyone deserves a conduct point. It’s me.” 

  • Well listen I didn’t mean to mock your win ratio, I merely used it to illustrate that it’s very possible you may be a troll.  Oh, and I am sincerely sorry you had to deal with depression, one of my family members suffers from it too. 
  • Obviously looking at your arguments, it doesn’t seem that way. 
  • Also regarding the definitions, ok that makes sense.

Moving on, 

“ My opponent’s sources lack evidence for some statistics showing Americans have a lower life expectancy than some countries with socialized medicine. We actually have a pretty good healthcare system in America and the problems it does have can be fixed by deregulation of it and other industries that affect it.” 

  • Firstly my opponent mentions no studies or statistics on how deregulation would fix the healthcare system since by my statistics the US which has the lowest regulation and is the most privatized is the WORST out of the developed world. Compared to more socialized countries such as Switzerland, Japan, and Australia, the US’s is pathetic. 
  • Secondly, the sources for this point were in the previous round. If I did happen to make a mistake I apologize and I’ll post my sources again in this round, sorry for the confusion. 

“ Other explanations for the lifespan of Americans is the fact that 37% of Americans are fat. Universal healthcare isn’t going to fix how shitty the American diet is or the lifestyle decisions that result in poor health.” 

  • This is a very common argument made and is a very horrible one to make. 
  • Firstly, other countries such as Germany for example ( which is a country that’s very similar to the US in culture ) and has similar obesity rates. This is a country that its VERY close to the US culturally and has similar obesity rates and yet since it has socialized medicine.
I find it troubling that my opponent believes NO other country in the developed world deals with a high obesity rate and aren’t similar culturally which is completely false. 

I mean do you seriously not believe healthcare eases obesity rates down and helps with lifestyle choices? I could imagine doctors appointments and speak with nutritionists more would ease this issue down. 

“ I'm not sure why my opponent thinks that lack of socialized medicine is what is causing lower lifespans.” 

  • Because EVERY single country in the developed world has socialized medicine with higher life spans. 
Don’t you think it’s a pretty big coincidence that the US which is the ONLY country in the developed world without socialized medicine is also coincidentally the one with the lowest life spans? 

By your insane logic with more deregulation equaling better healthcare, the US should have the best and highest life spans in the world since it’s the most privatized. 

“ Pro's assertions that Americans would be more productive (many of us are already hurting our mental and physical health by embracing the cult of productivity) is simply unproven and as it stands is a bare assertion.” 

  • I would also state you’ve committed a bare assertion fallacy since you’re the one assuming deregulation would lead to better healthcare outcomes ( which isn’t backed up by statistical data or common sense at all ). 
  • Admittedly I didn’t cite my source so I’ll do it here, according to this CDC study healthcare is linked to a boost in productivity. ( link down below however I’ll summarize a few bullet points here )
  • Healthier employees are less likely to call in sick or use vacation time due to illness
  • Companies that support workplace health have a greater percentage of employees at work every day
  • Because employee health frequently carries over into better health behavior that impacts both the employee and their family (such as nutritious meals cooked at home or increased physical activity with the family), employees may miss less work caring for ill family members as well
  • Similarly, workplace health programs can reduce presenteeism — the measurable extent to which health symptoms, conditions, and diseases adversely affect the work productivity of individuals who choose to remain at work
These are just some of the reasons how healthcare extended to more workers would aid corporations and society as a whole. 

“ For every 1,000 strokes in America, 170 people die. The number is 280 in similar countries who have socialized medicine.” 

  • Firstly I cited the source in the PAST argument. 
  • Secondly, this study is working on ASSUMED numbers, not actual numbers like my study are. 
  • Thirdly this is only a comparison of Canada which isn’t representative of socialized medicine since it’s arguably the worst example. Compare a better system like the United Kindoms or Australias and you’ll find there aren’t as many deaths. 
  • Fourthly you’re only taking into account yearly deaths when we also should be concerned with life expectancies and overall health outcomes. 
  • Statistically by my previous statistics, socialized countries with socialized medicine have higher life expectancies, better health outcomes, and cheaper and more affordable healthcare. ( We’ll get into the affordability argument shortly ). 

“ Whether the costs are 7.75 trillion or my opponent's solution to the problem which has a healthcare cost 7.36 trillion it is too high. 
Those costs even at 7.36 trillion would be the highest costs in the world. https://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2018/03/13/us-health-costs-high-jha” 

  • Socialized medicine in the US would be the most expensive in the world, however, my opponent is still missing the overall point that I'd be CHEAPER than our current healthcare system. Therefore you just lost the affordability argument. 

I find it troubling that literally, every single country in the world with socialized medicine has statistically WAY lower healthcare costs than the US does. As evidenced by this 2014 statistic from zerohedge a 2018 study by healthcaresystemtracker.org. The US is pretty much ALL statistics is the outlier and has significantly higher healthcare costs per capita than every single country in the world. 

Therefore my opponent just lost the affordability argument, arguments made against a national healthcare system are absurd and baseless. 

Also, my opponent's healthcare plan isn’t a very good plan and has never worked before. 

You may call this a fallacy however why would we change our system to a system which has been proven to work to a system which may work? 

I’ve been teasing this argument since round 1 and in the comment section so I’ll bring it up here since I accidentally forgot it last round. 

Firstly before we begin I’d like to post what my opponent's answers to my questions are as it will be important to this argument. 

“ I won't answer the questions in the debate, but since you are curious I will answer them here.
- What's your position on the minimum wage?
That it should be abolished, but I think wages are close to the market rate now so not that important but it could be in the future.
- What's your position on mass immigration and illegal immigration?
I am mostly opposed to them. I have no problem with legal immigration, as far as mass immigration it is usually harmful to the society and particularly women left behind mass migration so it should be avoided.
- What's your opinion on the redistribution of wealth?
Other than a basic minimum income, it should be avoided.
- Are you a conservative or anarcho libertarian?
Closer to libertarian, and libertarians are usually pro-government not anarchist.” 

These questions clearly illustrate that my opponent is being logically inconsistent and sort of hypocritical and here’s why. 

If you’re a libertarian/huge capitalist but are also an economic nationalist concerned with mass immigration and illegal immigration you’re a shill. 

The capitalists AREN’T conservative since it’s in their economic self-interest to abolish the minimum wage ( which you’re advocating for ) and to support illegal and mass immigration since they believe it’ll shrink the native wages thus hurting the native working class you’re so concerned with. 

A better solution would be more socialization to help native workers since if you instituted a minimum wage you wouldn’t be getting such mass immigration and your native wages wouldn’t shrink. 

Not to mention that libertarianism calls for the free market, so if you’re a huge capitalist why are you trying to restrict the flow of labor when you believe in the free market? 

Also, libertarianism isn’t pro-government as all, libertarianism is actually more pro anarchist since it’s against the redistribution of wealth/taxes and calls for laissez-faire capitalism which is against the government regulation of the economy. 

Very clearly my opponent's economic nationalist ideals wouldn’t be served under a capitalist system but more under a more socialized system which institutes a high minimum wage and immigration reform which would aid the native working class. Thus more socialization in your economic nationalist view would benefit society than a pure capitalist system which you’re advocating for. 

SOURCES: 
https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/how-do-healthcare-prices-and-use-in-the-u-s-compare-to-other-countries/
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-06-22/us-healthcare-snapshot-most-expensive-yet-worst-developed-world


Wylted's avatar
Wylted
Con
Syllogism

Pro does not attack the syllogism. If my premises are correct than I  win.

I argued that countries who have less freedom on the economic freedom scale, have worse standards of living. pro  drops this point, so my premise stands.

pro focuses on the fact that some low ranked countries are fascist, which is irrelevant, my premise is that countries who do good on the economic freedom index, have a higher standard of living. 

Premise 2 is that socialist policies harm economic freedom as measured by the index. I used 5 standards on the index to show how socialist policies harm economic freedom through taxes, business/labor freedom and monetary freedom. 

Pro has accepted premise 1 and that the conclusion is accurate if the premises are accurate. Pro asked why regulations hurt businesses, I guess that is supposed to be a rebuttal, but I already explained to him that it lowers your score on the economic freedom index. He dropped my argument that a higher index score means a higher standard of living. 

Pro says many of the countries on the top of the index have some socialist policies, but that is irrelevant. This is about whether more socialization will have more benefits than harms, and I already have shown how socialist policies give you lower scores on those 5 factors mentioned earlier. 

Questions

Pro needs to prove more socialization is good. Proving my beliefs are inconsistent, contradictory, stupid or wrong does nothing to move this debate along because it is irrelevant.

Life expectancy
pro's sources only support his argument that Americans have shorter lifespans, not why.

My  facts better explain shorter lives than pro's do. 1 was, Americans are more likely to die from violence than in other similar countries. Explanation 2 is how fat Americans are. 

pro mentions that Germany has  the same obesity rate as America. He drops my violent crime argument.

His study doesn’t do justice to how fat Americans are. We have the same obesity rates as Germany but our fat people are fatter. The  German male weighs 180 lbs. The average American  200 lbs. The  German female 150 lbs. The average American 170 lbs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_body_weight#By_country

Less of a fatness is linked to lower mortality rate in diabetes patients, heart patients cancer victims etc, and when we look at the actuary charts we see that somebody 20 lbs too fat is less likely to die than somebody 40 lbs too fat. So 20 pounds matter. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2714501  

Pro asks;

“I mean do you seriously not believe healthcare eases obesity rates down and helps with lifestyle choices?"

Doctors are a bad at nutrition advice. They are not trained on nutrition and while they may realize that diet effects health, they still lack knowledge. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/your-doctor-may-not-be-the-best-source-of-nutrition-advice/2018/07/06/f8b3ecfe-78af-11e8-93cc-6d3beccdd7a3_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.adc0e2638093

People typically ignore the diet advice the medical professionals give them. https://www.cochrane.org/CD008722/COMMUN_interventions-to-enhance-adherence-to-dietary-advice-for-preventing-and-managing-chronic-diseases-in-adults

There is not a single example of socialized medicine increasing visits to a nutritionist. These countries typically have rationing boards and are just as frugal as insurance companies. I want my pro to provide evidence socialized medicine has increased a patient's ability to adhere to nutrition advice of medical professionals or has made them more likely to hire a nutritionist.

Pro says;

“Don’t you think it’s a pretty big coincidence that the US which is the ONLY country in the developed world without socialized medicine is also coincidentally the one with the lowest life spans? “

I think since this effect is better explained through lifestyle and the sheer fatness of Americans as well as their increased likelihood to be murdered. I would say it is a spurious correlation and his question would be just as silly as me asking the following questions based on correlations in data.


Number of drownings in a swimming pool per year is directly correlated with the amount of films Nicolas Cage has starred in. Does my opponent think this is mere coincidence?

The divorce rate in Maine is directly correlated with Margarine consumption. Does my opponent think this is mere coincidence? http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

Of course it is a coincidence. Statistics by themselves mean very little, until we look at and investigate different possible reasons those things are occurring. The lower life expectancy in America can be explained because being a fat ass is bad for your health. It can also be explained by the fact getting shot in the head is bad for your health and quite frankly it is more likely to occur in the United States than other 1st world countries. 

Pro says;

“By your insane logic with more deregulation equaling better healthcare, the US should have the best and highest life spans in the world since it’s the most privatized.”


Not really because I think there is a lot that goes into determining somebody’s lifespan, like economic prosperity that allows them to eat a ton of excess food that will shorten their lifespan or a culture that makes it more okay for somebody to shoot somebody in the head. I’m not throwing out correlation altogether because all statistics show it, but when we have a better explanation for the same phenomenon that I mentioned, my explanation should be accepted over yours. Especially when you take into account my other arguments.

Deregulation

Pro says;

““you’ve committed a bare assertion fallacy….. you’re ... assuming deregulation would lead to better healthcare outcomes.”


I didn’t commit a bare assertion. I gave examples of extra regulations in one sector having bad results in another. The wage controls enacted by FDR  caused businesses to use insurance to recruit employees. Taxing businesses at 80% to adopt socialist programs, caused businesses to take advantage of the tax benefits of providing people with insurance. Health insurance becoming the norm as explained earlier caused a disconnect from what the costs of healthcare are because the consumer is only paying a very tiny percentage of them. With no need to shop around, and no incentive for businesses to compete based on cost, it drove healthcare prices up. pro doesn’t dispute this is what occurred so it should count as a dropped argument.This is an example of socialist policies driving up the cost of healthcare in the United States.Pro doesn’t dispute this. 

I argued that if we remove the things that cause or caused prices to be high, than we would see prices drop. Pro has failed to provide a rebuttal for the claim that removing the causes of this problem will remove the problem. Maybe the judges can think of a response to that statement, but pro hasn’t, so my argument must stand. 

Healthcare and productivity

I mentioned the cult of productivity was dangerous as a side the point. I challenged pro on the fact he stated as a bare assertion that socialized medicine would make wage slaves more productive. He has replied by saying that better health care leads to more productivity for wage slaves (paraphrasing). To prove this point he has to show that socialized medicine leads to better health outcomes, and when you look at my statistics showing how much people socialized medicine would kill in the United States compared to the tiny amount of people that privatized healthcare kills, than we can see socialized medicine leads to worse health outcomes, meaning the wage slaves he wants to work harder for businesses would be less productive under his model.

Socialism Kills

pro has dropped my argument that 44,000 additional deaths happen in Canada due to increased waiting. If  socialized medicine works just as well in America, than we will see 400,000 more deaths due to wait times.

pro has dropped my argument that Cancer treatment is worse in countries with socialized medicine and assuming socialized medicine would work just as well in America than we would face up to an additional 80,000 deaths a year. 

Let’s be honest. Socialized medicine already exists in America in the form of the VA and it is worse than socialized medicine in other 1st world countries, so we know that America would suck at doing it. It would be worse if it was as successful as what other  nations do, but we have every reason to believe that we would do it worse as evidenced by how bad the VA is. 

Pro asserts that I am working with assumed stats, but I used real stats and provided with citations and obviously we are debating how something will work in theory so we are both making assumptions in that regard.

My opponent claims that Canada has a worse system than other socialist countries but failed to explain why America would socialize healthcare any better. He is also incorrect. The UK also has similarly high numbers with 250 people per 1000 compared to The U.S’s private healthcare which has 170 per 1,000 people die after having a stroke. Even if we say okay, let’s throw Canada’s stroke statistics out, we still have the UK with similar ugly numbers. 

Economics

Pro has dropped my argument that removing the things that caused high health costs would lower healthcare costs more than would socializing medicine. 

Conclusion

pro has dropped my argument that even if socialism has some benefits in terms of health care that it would still have worse results overall. He has not attacked the My overall syllogism in any significant way, while my argument that his conclusion does not follow from his premises, even if his premises are correct has been dropped.  This is an easy vote. Vote con



Round 4
Pinkfreud08's avatar
Pinkfreud08
Pro
Economic freedom: 

 Pro focuses on the fact that some low ranked countries are fascist, which is irrelevant, my premise is that countries who do good on the economic freedom index, have a higher standard of living. 

  • And Con seems to be missing my previous counter argument being, 
 Also, the countries that ironically my opponent sites are actually countries with higher levels of socialization which disproves my opponent's point since if truly more socialistic policies decreased economic freedom than why are these countries ranked so highly?  

-  To clarify, I agree economic freedom and efficiency are important however clearly more socialization in countries such as Australia and the UK aren’t being held back in terms of freedom since they rank higher or around the same level as the US in the statistical my opponent cited. 

- Not to mention other countries with very high GDP per capita with higher levels of socialization such as Switzerland and Norway. These are countries with heavy levels of socialization with robust economies which provide good quality of life for their citizens. 
 
 Premise 2 is that socialist policies harm economic freedom... I used 5 standards.. to show how socialist policies harm economic freedom
  • This point is easily debunked since similar to the first premise, more socialist countries rank as high if not higher than the US. 
 Pro says many of the countries on the top of the index have some socialist policies, but that is irrelevant...socialist policies give you lower scores

It actually is relevant, if the countries at the top of the index have more heavy socialization than the US and have more economic freedom which thereby increases the quality of living, this defeats this entire premise that more socialist countries restrict freedom more thus debunking this entire argument. 

Questions: 

 Pro needs to prove more socialization is good. Proving my beliefs are inconsistent, contradictory, stupid or wrong does nothing to move this debate along because it is irrelevant.

The point I was trying to make is you say you’re big on capitalism, however by supporting Republicans and believing in concepts such as strict immigration and restriction of the free movement of labor, you go against your core principles as a libertarian. 

Libertarians call for the free market and the free movement of labor, so if you’re big on the free market, why’re you trying to restrict the free movement of labor?

If you’re concerned with mass immigration and illegal immigration and how it’ll harm native workers and want immigration reform. You won’t get those things if you shill for the capitalists. 

The capitalists aren’t conservative, they’re actively working against you in hopes for shrinking native wages. 
 
 pro's sources only support his argument that Americans have shorter lifespans, not why. 
  • Americans have shorter lifespans due to private healthcare industries high costs as evidenced by the statistic I cited previously which puts the US’s healthcare plan the highest in terms of costs in the world. If the healthcare is so expensive as it is, you’re going to have people not going to check-ups or stalling on surgeries due to the high medical costs and you’re going to have millions of underinsured Americans as evidenced by the statistics I previously cited. 
 1 was, Americans are more likely to die from violence than in other similar countries. Explanation 2 is how fat Americans are.
Obesity: 

  • A country such as Russia with low obesity rates has lower life expectancy or equal than the US, same with Cuba and Chile.
  • What about New Zealand which is a country with a close obesity rate with the US and yet has a significantly higher life expectancy?

Very clearly obesity rates aren’t determinant in life expectancy rates and a more likely and realistic explanation is that healthcare is what mainly is determinant of life expectancy. From my previous statistics I’ve sited millions go underinsured, thousands die, and our life expectancies are dropping and are pathetically low in our private system. 

Con’s assertions that they’re almost determinant regardless of healthcare plan is a misrepresentation at best and dishonest at worst.

When a bad country such as Cuba which is very horrible is only slightly behind us, that should give an indicator that our healthcare system needs massive reform. 

Murder rates: 

1 was, Americans are more likely to die from violence than in other similar countries.

 The murder rate has been steadily dropping so by my opponents logic our life expectancy should be increasing, which simply isn’t backed up by statistics at all.

In fact, according to various sources, I've linked. the US’s life expectancy has been steadily declining over the past few years even with the murder and violence rates dropping. 

You could bring up an argument about mental health, however countries with national healthcare such as Germany for instance cover mental health, unlike the expensive US system in which mental health is covered by private healthcare providers. 

And as we all know mental health greatly impacts suicide rates. 

If mental health services were universal like in countries such as Norway and Germany, the suicide rates would generally drop. This is also ignoring a country such as Finland with similar suicide rates and yet a high life expectancy. 

Nutrition advice: 

Note how I clarified by stating nutritionists which are covered by a national healthcare plan and even provided in services such as Medicaid.
 People typically ignore diet advice medical professionals give them.

Let’s say we have 10 people under a privatized healthcare plan and only 5 get nutritional advice. 

Let’s say only 20 % so only 2 people take it. 

Let’s say we have 10 people under a national healthcare plan and all get nutritional advice, working under the same 20 % percentage 4 take advice. 

Which plan do you figure has more healthy citizens? 

Go ahead and compare states that teach ways of preventing STD’s and those that don’t and you’ll find a clear difference. 

 There is not a single example of socialized medicine increasing visits to a nutritionist. These countries typically have rationing boards and are just as frugal as insurance companies.

  • These countries have more people visiting the doctors due to it being universal. 

The US’s more privatized plan sees millions uninsured. In which the figure is almost 30 million uninsured patients. 

Con’s next section regarding correlation was already debunked by this previous argument and the statistics and reasoning I provided. 

It isn’t a coincidence that national healthcare leads to better outcomes as evidenced by countries with similar or at times higher obesity and violence rates with national healthcare systems and better outcomes. 

“ like economic prosperity that allows them to eat a ton of excess food that will shorten their lifespan or a culture...” 

  • Economic prosperity doesn’t equal obesity rates necessarily, countries in my previous source such as Egypt, Samoa, and Qatar all aren’t in the best economic positions and yet have obesity rates even higher than the US's. 

Regulations bad: 

 I didn’t commit a bare assertion. I gave examples of extra regulations in one sector having bad results

  • Giving a couple of examples isn’t comparable to entire countries with higher regulations than the US's and is performing better. 

 This is an example of socialization driving costs of healthcare in the US.
  • This isn’t the case since the US's costs are significantly higher than any other country, including countries with higher levels of socialized medicine. 

Due to this, the argument that socialized medicine defeats incentivization and are driving up costs make little sense in the long run, tackle on this statistic and the Bernie healthcare plan I cited earlier which would lower costs significantly, this argument is absurd and very baseless. 

Socialism "kills": 

 Pro has dropped my argument that 44,000 additional deaths happen in Canada due to increased waiting.

Sure countries such as Canada and Norway have higher wait times, however, my opponent is also ignoring countries with socialized medicine with around the same wait times such as the UK, Switzerland, Netherlands, and Germany. This clearly illustrates that privatized systems such as the US's don’t equal lower wait times when socialized medicine countries have similar times.

Another key point to this argument which my opponent isn’t taking into consideration is that while some of these countries may have more deaths, the fact is that more socialized modules in developed countries extend their reach to far more citizens than the privatized model which by my previous statistic sees millions going uninsured or perhaps going bankrupt.

 Pro asserts that I am working with assumed stats..we are debating how something will work in theory so we are both making assumptions 

Fair enough, however regardless Con is, in fact, committing a bad proof fallacy in which he is taking the failures of several socialized programs and drawing the conclusion that regulation is bad and is completely ignoring the countries with higher regulation with better overall outcomes. 

 My opponent claims that Canada has a worse system than other socialist countries but failed to explain why America would socialize healthcare any better.

  • Canada has a significantly lower GDP per capita and has lower tax revenue and thus has a significantly worse off economy than the US's. 

The US which arguably has the most powerful economy in the world would likely have more tax revenue and thus better healthcare outcomes. 

Source Link: 


Wylted's avatar
Wylted
Con
4 Point Voting

This is not a select winner debate. My opponent chose the 4 point system because he wants more than just arguments to be judged. I agreed to a debate with a 4 point system because I want all the points judged as well. Neither of us argued for any grammar points so you can ignore that, though my grammar is better overall, even if you spot a few mistakes. Regardless of the judges actual opinions on the matter, all 4 points should be judged and a winner decided on each one. 


Conduct

Pro asked my permission to post the link to sources since he could not seem to get his argument down to below 10,000 characters any other way. So please do not deduct a conduct point from him on that basis. If you want to deduct one for the reasons I mentioned earlier than by all means do. If you want to reward me one for being gracious enough to allow him to mildly break the structure of the debate, that is fine as well. 

I’m not going to touch on much in my opponent’s final round. New arguments don’t count in the final round, so all the new arguments he made should be disregarded. So when pro makes an argument like the following;

“Let’s say we have 10 people under a privatized healthcare plan and only 5 get nutritional advice. 

Let’s say only 20 % so only 2 people take it. “


It should be ignored just as if I respond by pointing out there is absolutely no evidence that people would receive more or better dietary advice under a socialist healthcare system, it should be ignored. The fact he has tried to add new arguments is debatably worthy of a conduct point, and if judging the debate in a Tabula Rasa style, the judges should certainly weigh are arguments on conduct points without inserting their own judgement to see if either one of us deserve one. 

Sources

I do think with how the sources have been used in this debate, I deserve source points. Not only did/959iu he not cite all of the “facts” he brought up, but when he did cite facts he intentionally misinterpreted what the citations said. For example when he stated he had sources claiming that Americans had a shorter life expectancy due to a lack of socialized medicine, but I read through his sources and they merely claimed Americans had a lower life expectancy, without attributing a cause. He seemed to concede that people were dying because of their eating choices, but claimed socialized medicine will somehow force me to stop drinking beer and eating pizza. (I know, I am on a tangent)

His sources are being cited for things they don’t say, he misses sources for facts such as the 7.7 trillion dollar figure. The other problem is it is hard to track what each source is even for which fact, because they are just haphazardly lumped together at the bottom of the page, making it hard for me to even check just one, if I buy most of his facts but merely doubt just one for example.  

---------------------------------------------------------------
Introduction

Even the points pro brings up that I can address from his final round, I will not be responding to. He cannot respond to what I post in the final round, so out of a sense of fairness, I will show him the same respect. Neither one of us should have it held against us, that we are unable to respond to each other’s final round.

My Case

My argument I laid out in round one. Let’s examine it to see if it still stands at the end of this debate.

P 1- economic freedom causes a higher standard of living.

P 2- Socialist policies are antithetical to economic freedom

C 1- socialist policies are responsible for a lower standard of living.

The conclusion is naturally derived from the premises. If my premises stand, than my argument stands and pro loses the debate. 

During the course of the debate, I argued that economic freedom as defined by the economic freedom index creates a higher standard of living. This premise is never objected to, and the judges should accept it as true. 

My 2nd premise is that socialist policies are antithetical to economic freedom. My opponent claims that since some of the top countries have socialist policies, that these policies are not antithetical to economic freedom. However it only proves that every country has room for improvement in the economic freedom index. It does not prove that more socialist policies would not drive these countries even lower in the economic freedom index or total score the country is assigned. 

I supported my premises by stating that the following 5 areas scored on the index are harmed by all socialist policies to some degree.

“government spending, tax burden, business freedom, labor freedom, monetary freedom,”

For each of those points I gave one or more premises for how socialism causes a country to lose points. My opponent, barely challenged me on this, if he challenged me at all. Remember he never challenged the economic freedom index as a good measure for what we are measuring in this debate. He also never challenged this second premise that socialist countries have a negative impact on these scores.

Since my first premise and second premise go unchallenged and the conclusion naturally derives from the premises (this statement has went unchallenged as well), than I should automatically win on argument points. 

Pro’s Arguments

I summed up pro’s arguments as follows;

P1- universal healthcare has more positives than negatives

P2- universal healthcare would require/be an increase in “socialization”

C1- More socialization would overall be beneficial to society

Pro seems to agree with my analysis and summary of his arguments. I never challenged pro on premise 2. I think I could show how it could actually decrease socialization in total, but it wasn’t worth my time to explain that. So his 2nd premise should stand.

Premise number one is what I took issue with. If we look at the impacts, we can see that despite privatized medicine being responsible for some deaths, socialized medicine if applied and assuming we would apply it as well as the UK or Canada, would result in a massively more people dying from socialized medicine that would die if America just kept medicine private. 

I showed that socialism has had the unintended side effects of causing prices in medicine to soar because of a disconnect between consumers and the actual cost of care. This goes unchallenged. He argued that socialism would drop prices a tiny bit on medical care, but not removing the socialist policies that caused the prices to soar (and pro does not dispute that assertion), is also a decision for more socialism and I showed that a decision for less socialism in medicine by removing the cause of the current problem would result in lower drug costs. 

I also argued that even if socialist healthcare had some positive impacts on health (even though I proved it didn’t), that it does not prove an overall positive impact to society and I pointed to the scoring of the economic freedom index to prove this. My opponent amazingly does not contest this argument.

Conclusion

I want to thank Pink Freud for this debate. It was fun. I wish him good luck in future debates. 

If we look at how I framed the debate, my frame was never challenged, my premises were never challenged, only some individual points in the premises. My opponent has dropped tons of my affirmative arguments.

My opponent only argued for one benefit to socialization, I think I defeated his first premise, but even if I did not, I certainly showed that the conclusion does not necessarily flow from the premises. Anyway, thanks for getting this far in reading the debate, hopefully it was enjoyable. Please vote.