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Debate Info

80
91
Free Health Care Pay to Live
Debate Score:171
Arguments:136
Total Votes:183
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 Free Health Care (62)
 
 Pay to Live (71)

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ChicanoDude(5) pic



Health Care Should Be Free

Growing up as a kid in Mexico my health care was not first priority. I am twenty-one now and well i wouldn't say healthy as a horse but healthy enough to live my life happy. I am free of any disease and virus, but not everybody has it that way. I could care less about going to the doctor since I am an average healthy adult and i don't want to pay high prices just for a visit. Some people aren't born as healthy as others and some take a heavy burden from that. Hospital bills will be the end of you.

I believe the government should pay our medical bills. Why should having a healthy life have a hefty price tag that most people can't afford? According to an article by procon.org, 62.1% of all U.S. bankruptcies in 2007 were related to medical expenses. The U.S. is one of the few, if not the only, developed nation in the world that does not guarantee health coverage for its citizens. Canada and Europe are two of the leading countries with free health care. There are some programs in the U.S. that provide health care for example Medicaid. Medicaid is only available for those with low income and everything will be covered. There have been a few presidents that have proposed universal health care and that were President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, and most recently Barack Obama.

Just how far will one go to get free health care. Well on June 9th of 2011, Richard James Verone from North Carolina went into a bank and handed over a note over to the clerk. In the note it said he demanded $1 and he was claiming he was armed. That is exactly what he did according to abcNews. The clerk had called the police and said all he was doing was sitting down on the couch just waiting. That's because Richard knew police were coming, his intentions were to get arrested. Verone said, " I asked for $1 to show that my motives were medical, not monetary." Going by the report, Verone has a growth in his chest, two ruptures disks and no job. Verone went to further say, "I'm sort of a logical person and that was my logic, what I came up with, if it is called manipulation, then I guess I am manipulating the courts to get medical care."

I would not doubt it if more attempts have been made since then because the Federal Bureau of Prisons provides very decent medical care. If a prison has a condition that the hospital is not capable of handling, they will be shipped off to outside hospitals. Some even end up in world-class facilities like the famed Mayo Clinic.

Before I would care less whether we had free health care, but one day I met someone who opened my eyes. My current girlfriend, Amber, that I have been with for three years now is severely sick. As a child she had to endure a lot of operations due to a tumor behind her ear, operation on her eyes, and transfusions. Everything was paid for because of Medicare but once she hit eighteen, Medicare no longer covers you. The doctors told her she needed one more final operation to completely take out the tumor. The time for that tumor to be removed has come and has been growing.

Every single day she endures pain. Her eyesight is getting worse as time goes by and losing tasted buds. A couple of months ago I had to take her to the hospital due to severe bleeding from her ear. Doctors did what they can since they do not specialize in that field, and from the conditions and symptoms, she had two years at the most to live. Her body is shutting down slowly and her heart is giving out, is what the doctors said.

There is not a day that goes by that I wish she could be better. Even if I put all my money into it(Part-time Valet), and her family(low income) it still wouldn't be enough. The visits, medication, operation, and the long intensive care afterwards are too costly. Watching her die slowly has been a burden for me and i know there are more people like Amber who have no choice but to suffer. Her dreams of becoming a police officer can no longer be achieved or becoming a mom. We had to learn the hard way and she was not capable of carrying a child, her miscarriage really put her down. She wanted to leave something behind but now that is not possible.

Yes they may be long waiting lines if there is free health care but the one who are really sick need to be first priority. The government just makes up excuses, it can be done. I just hope it happens sooner.

 

Free Health Care

Side Score: 80
VS.

Pay to Live

Side Score: 91
4 points

As a citizen of Canada, I have access to free health-care. Almost everyone in this country agrees with free health-care. I realize in America, things are different with Obama-care and what not. However, I think that it is the responsibility of the government to provide well being to its tax-payers.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

However, I think that it is the responsibility of the government to provide well being to its tax-payers.

For the government to provide this service the tax-payers have to pay more. Its not free, so in the end, some will end up getting stuck with the bill.

"The more the government serves the people, the more the people must serve the government"

Side: Pay to Live
kozlov(1754) Disputed
4 points

That is your opinion. I believe the government is useful for many things. Health-care is one of them. It is a sad day when private companies make massive amounts of money of the health problems of others. Yes there will be more tax, but in the long run, it's cheaper, and the moral thing to do.

Side: Free Health Care
zico20(345) Disputed
2 points

your health care isnt free my friend. Just because they bundle in health care costs in your tax bill doesnt make it free. US citizens who are fairly healthy pay a MUCH lower rate than you do. Canadians pay on average close to 4000 per person per year thru taxes for health coverage that doesnt include prescription drugs or dental; both of which has to be paid for thru a private insurer.

My health care is about 1800 a year thru my employer. Plus, I dont have to wait weeks to see a specialist like Canadians do. The wait time is awful. Canadians are brainwashed into thinking they get free health care. Unless of course they dont plan on working their entire life.

Side: Pay to Live
kozlov(1754) Disputed
1 point

You're brainwashed into thinking that free-markets are the solution to everything. You cannot tell me that I am wrong about what goes on in my country because I live there and you do not. Canadians choose not to accept 50 000 dollar medical bills, so we pay a bit more tax to our very efficient Medicare system. Please note: this tax is not higher just because of Medicare, we also have a small population, so we need to pay more per person. Also, the wait time in Canada is not as bad as you depict it to be. At least we do not have to die because we cannot afford to get our illnesses checked.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

It is here :)

It's cruel to have essential things for those who can afford it only.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDbigrTb8bI

Watch this video, and go to the website.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

Free health-care is necessary, so everyone in society can have equal opportunities.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

It does work, it's a matter of priorities in the system we currently have. Tax money could and should pay for everyone's hospital bills. There are things of lesser importance that gets much more government grants.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

What a contortion of liberty, to say that ones life depending on the arbitrary will of others is freedom.

Side: Free Health Care
copycat042(166) Disputed
1 point

What a contortion of liberty, to say that ones life depending on the arbitrary will of others is freedom.

That characterization is a contortion of the argument.

Your argument implies that the inaction of one unjustly deprives another of his life. This implies that NOT providing another with property which is rightly yours, is the equivalent of taking that property from another. This is not the case.

Freedom, and liberty is not "access to the resources of others", it is "using one's own means to effect one's own ends, without actively interfering with another's right to do the same". Not acting to help another is not the same as actively harming another.

Side: Pay to Live
1 point

I think health care should be free, as the old quote goes (I cant remember who first said it) the mark of a civilized society is how well it treats it's weakest members, one of the weakest members being the sick and infirm

Side: Free Health Care
1 point

Everything should be free.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

Only things free are those that are abundant and require no human action to obtain them such as air or sun light. Everything else has value because it is a scarce resource; thus, since all human demands are potentially infinite, this must give these scarce resources value; therefore, supply and demand determine value.

Side: Pay to Live
nummi(1432) Disputed
1 point

A crooked way of looking at it.

Take the medium of exchange out of the equation and think logically for fuck's sake.

Side: Free Health Care
1 point

Nothing is free, every resource has a value and worth. At the end of the day, someone will ALWAYS have to pay for it, forcing someone else to pay for your stuff is immoral.

Side: Pay to Live
nummi(1432) Disputed
1 point

That's right, nothing is free, but everything should be free.

Everything has a price because our civilization is run by greed which comes directly from stupidity and ignorance.

The only worth every resource has is how it contributes to humanity's progress, and that's all there is to resources.

If people actually began using their raisins and began thinking about how things really are and how to improve everything then money would quickly be abolished. Oh yes, it's that again - money - it is negative to human progress.

You really shouldn't be talking about what is immoral or not as you completely lack the sense of right and wrong, I mean c'mon, you're a fucking drug user, probably an addict. Or is this all you go about drugs, so often, just a show to make yourself look "cool"? All you are doing with that immature fussing is make yourself look like an idiot, which you obviously are in truth.

You are living in a world you made up in your mind and you believe it to be true, you haven't and probably cannot look at the real world without bias. You are pathetic.

You cannot figure out how things would work without money? You either are, as I've already stated - an idiot. Or you're just another greedy fuck, and that would also explain why you have such stupid opinions.

Side: Free Health Care
1 point

i can not believe people are choosing other options besides free health care. of course health care should be free. how could you as a doctor not help a human bean in need of help? are you kidding? we should have a universal law of free health care. i don't think people realize that as soon as you are born on this earth you become part of a unit, and here we are crumbling to shit because people decide is a great idea to separate each other in groups because of race or income or whatever. it is ridiculous that after thousands of years, generation after generation we still cant freaking decide if its a good idea to help each other. let me make it simpler for you. we need to help each other, it should not be a choice.

Side: Free Health Care

It should be free if you cannot afford it.

"WAAAAAGH BUT CHATTURGHA, THAT'LL MAKE PEOPLE MOOCH OFF TAXPAYERS."

I don't care. I'm a tax payer and I couldn't give two shits. If someone is comfortable living pitifully and miserably by my standards, it's not my place to judge them differently then anyone else. And for the most part, I don't think there is such a thing as a 'moocher' in the lower class even though I supposedly met someone like that in my childhood.

This is because I think that as long as you are homeless, about to be homeless, physically suffering, have loved ones whom are physically suffering, going hungry on some weeks, yada yada... then you'd have to be clinically insane to be comfortable living in such a state. And if you're not comfortable living in such a state, you're either presently trying to get yourself up to a more liveable state of existence, or you've already tried doing that so much that you are at your wits end and have given up.

Either way, I inevitably do not believe that the poor are moochers for getting handouts. I think quality of life should be determined by A. If you're a human being or not, B. How hard you work, and C. How much you suffer. Some people are all suffering and no work... can you really blame them? Suffering sort of, you know, takes away your ability to be psychologically and/or physically stable enough to work. And even then, people who have supposedly 'given up' are generally working to not suffer, even if they don't seem to be working to pull themselves out of poverty.

Now, you could retort by claiming that people who suffer deserve it because they made mistakes. Well, who are you to judge other people's suffering as just? It's not within our power as human beings to literally experience the same agony as other human beings, but we naturally make assumptions that said suffering is horrible; this is called empathy. Why develop feelings of empathy, even for complete strangers, if we were meant to judge people's suffering as being just?

Obviously, we weren't. For so many of you, if you made mistakes that made you suffer enough, there would always be a point in which would you break, and realize that you don't deserve the agony you are getting. So what you fail to infer is that other people are pretty much exactly the same, but indiscernible in truth. Since we can assume that people are the same as us, as in they experience suffering, but we cannot literally judge what their suffering is, we can only come to the conclusion that a person is suffering as much as they appear or say.

As in, we cannot judge how much a person suffers, and since it's very possible to suffer more then for what you supposedly 'deserve', we have no way of knowing if a person deserves a damn thing of what they have to put up with. Since we cannot judge the suffering of others by ourselves, that means we cannot judge what they may have done that supposedly resulted in their suffering.

Furthermore, we cannot judge how much someone should be punished for something. If someone does something wrong, and you cannot truly interpret by yourself how they experience agony, then setting a standard punishment is wrong, as it runs the very real risk of unjustly damaging someone. You don't imprison the murderer to punish him, you imprison the murderer to stop him from hurting other people.

In conclusion, if you have the audacity to judge others suffering and tell them, to their face, they deserve it, without any empirical context, then you are an apathetic faggot whom is a detriment to the human race. If ten people like you were to suddenly die, I would feel just as bad as if ten people like me were to suddenly die, because I am a better person then you, and I have the foresight to understand that caring for people is quintessential to human existence. You not understanding or agreeing with this doesn't make me care for you less, but it does make you a bad, or not very a good, person.

With that all explained, I will reiterate: health care should be free for people who cannot afford it. Why? Because they are not lazy, you douche pickle. They are unfortunate and suffering people who don't deserve to be treated like garbage by someone more fortunate then they. Also, they are human beings, and humans beings deserve a minimum quality of life... and if we are ever to become an empathetic, caring, loving society, truly, then we much start by improving the quality of life for the less fortunate.

Side: Free Health Care
2 points

Wow, what a pointless rant? Thanks for you opinion.

Health care can be free to those who want to voluntarily for it, not by force through your greatest and dearest friend, government. Oh wait, this already exists, they are charities.

Side: Pay to Live
chatturgha(1631) Disputed
1 point

I think it's the government's job to alleviate suffering.

So yes, it should be forced, unless such force would cause specific individuals to become impoverished themselves.

Side: Free Health Care
1 point

I wonder where the people who are against single-payer or government-paid healthcare live? What states?

Because the single largest objection seems to be to use the collective pool of money (taxes) to pay for everyone's health care. Like it violates some sacred right or some sacred ideal.

Why did I ask you what state you live in? Because if you live in Alabama or Mississippi or Indiana or Iowa, for example, then you get more in federal dollars than you contribute to the federal coffers. Which means that I, who live in California--where we send more to the IRS than we get back in federal funding--am basically paying for your stop signs and freeways.

That's right. Your highways are free for you because you aren't paying for them. I am. New Yorkers are. I say this not to gloat, but to show you through example how tax dollars work. AND to let you know that I don't mind paying for your stop signs. I wouldn't mind paying for your health care, either--so long as we could all have it.

I would bet a fat man that everyone here who objects to single-payer like they have in Canada is a white male from a red state......

Side: Free Health Care

I believe that health care should be free. But to some extent obviously. First of all the poor should have free healcare or atleast the ones with minimum wage. If not then atleast a high discount rate. Taxes are such a bum and ,for me, not being used to its fullest. Through this, the taxes would be used much more properly. The government will pay the doctors through the taxes. Then the surgeries would be the extra fee that should be paid by the patient. In short, free or discounted to the poor, normal to the rich.

Side: Free Health Care
1 point

Health-care is not free, but the point of Universal Medicare is to make it easier to swallow. I don't mind paying a few cents more so I don't get hit by a 50 000 dollar medical bill.

Side: Free Health Care
1 point

I think that health care must be free. However, before making it free, the government have to pay attention on a system in hospitals. Because, if health care will be free, a lot of patients will come to hospitals and it will be very difficult to wait one's turn, especially if you need a help right now, but there are many people who came before you and also wait.

Additionally, in my country (I do not know about others) after private clinics were opened, doctors do not pay attention to patients unless he or she pays.

Side: Free Health Care

I wish all health care would be free. People should not have to live in fear about having to file medical bankruptcy.

Side: Free Health Care
4 points

I would rather take my own fate into my hands than rely on the government. When companies compete, quality of life improves. What should be improved is health insurance, not making health care in general 'free'. Someone will always have to pay for it, after all. If not with money, then with blood, sweat, and tears.

Side: Pay to Live
2 points

I think it should be pay to live, because we shouldn't only think of ourselves. I mean, doctors also have to pay for things and provide for their family's needs. If we dont pay them, then they would also not be able to support their family. People get sick all the time, if there are no doctors who want to work, because obviously, there would be no one to pay them anymore, then no one would get better anymore.

Side: Pay to Live
Empirical(14) Disputed
1 point

Okay Cambriel, your argument is just stupid. Not only is it stupid, it does not deal with the question. The question is not whether doctors should get paid, it's who should pay the health care bills.

Get a clue

Side: Free Health Care
Cambriel(711) Disputed
1 point

Yeah, i also dealt with the question, and it wasn't stupid though. I gave examples why we should pay for the treatment that we get, and that's why the doctors' payment was mentioned. I backed up my argument with reasons. There are broader horizons on why we should pay. And my argument was also about who should pay the health care bills.. WHY? Because in order to pay for that treatment, then you should have a reason to do so. And thats the reason I gave why people should pay for their treatment.

Now, let me tell you why your argument is also stupid

First, people would not upvote me if they did not see my reason in my argument. Thus, I had two points now. Second, get a clue... what kind of clue do you want me to get when I clearly have something to say about my argument? Third, before calling someone stupid try to think if your argument is stupid enough.

Side: Pay to Live

Health care has improved a lot. Our life styles have improved and people are living longer. The problem, however, is that people who normally would have died due to stupidity are being kept alive by government programs funded by tax payers. We have taken Darwinism out of society. As a result, the world is over populated and we now face global warming. We could ease global warming if we had less people on the planet releasing green house gasses. We could fix over population by putting Darwinism back into society and letting people die off. If you can't pay your hospital bills, then you probably don't make enough money because you probably don't have a good job because you're probably not educated enough and you're probably being subsidized with tax payer money. Stupid people would have died off in the old days thanks to natural selection (the strongest survive). If we let the weak die off, the human species as a whole would benefit and become stronger. If people cannot pay their hospital bills, they should die off so the rest of us can benefit ;)

Side: Pay to Live
2 points

The labels of the "sides" of this debate are a false dichotomy. They should be "Someone else pays for my health care" vs. " I pay for my health care".

You are not "paying to live" you are merely NOT being given resources to which you have no valid claim.

You are not "denying" shelter to the homeless, when you refuse to allow strangers to live in your house, you are exercising your exclusive right to use a resource which you have earned.

Health care is a service, not a right. To claim the right to the service of others is to advocate slavery, even if only in small steps.

Side: Pay to Live

Nothing is free, simple as that.------------------------------

Side: Pay to Live

Free-health care is one of those things that sounds good, but in reality can not work, at least no in America at the moment, for a number of reasons.

We got a huge financial crisis going on right now, so it would be for the best not to add expenses to the federal budget (which for the record doesn't exist).

Another problem is a more practical one. We don't have enough doctors to handle the huge increase in patients that would result from free-health care, and none of the proposed plans even mention a way to handle this. It would just be giving more work to doctors for lower pay.

Another problem is the inflation of health care. Most of your hospital bill is just helping cover the expenses of other patients who could not afford it, so the bill has been increased. People seem to forget that while hospitals provide an important service, they are still businesses and need to make a profit.

people need to understand that if we push the government to continue to stretch it's budget even more, it eventually won't be able to help anyone. Lets get to a more stable place economically wise before we begin discussing proposals like universal health care.

Side: Pay to Live
1 point

health is important but in this world everything is money so if you want to live you have to pay

Side: Pay to Live
1 point

Socialized medicine doesn't work as great as many protractors claim in a debate versus an american. Because of the collective nature there's a disincentive to provide one's best. That's probably why those who are covered by healthcare in the US has access to the world's best

Side: Pay to Live
1 point

There is no such thing as free healthcare. Someone has to pay. The cause of a lot of healthcare problems is over taxation which drives the prices up.

Side: Pay to Live
1 point

I think medical companies should stop cornholing hospitals on prices so they can stop cornholing us on prices, and I think doctors should settle for less pay. But that is definitely not going to happen.

Side: Pay to Live
1 point

When you are relying on the government you can never move forward in your life. Because you are always pro government. You never experience real struggle because you're getting so much help. And with that help it's putting the American government to shame because of all the money we are investing into health care

Side: Pay to Live