What are some reasons why a government should provide health care to its citizens?

Question

Details are awesome.

I understand that many people do not agree that a government should provide health care to its citizens. However, I am writing debate speeches for both sides of the debate, and I need some arguments in agreement with the statement.

To clarify: provide means free health care, though taxation is probable. Remember that there is no right answer... Just what are some arguments for each side?

Thanks

Answer 1

When the government provides health care, there is no incentive to save money on the treatments. The "governemt is paying," so the providers charge as much as possible for as little care as possible. The result is YOU pay $20 for an aspirin. When the government is paying, there is no incentive to develop new ways to treat patients. Why should there be? The government will pay whatever we charge, so why spend our money to find better treatments? If you want a good contrast, look at canada versus the US. Up there, you'll wait months for a surgery. Down here, you get it right away. "National healthcare" is a Democrat idea designed to bankrupt the healthcare system so that the Democrats can control it entirely. Smart people know it's folly. Idiots want it because it's billed as being "free." It ain't free, people. Someone has to pay the doctors and nurses and janitors. It's YOU who will get the bill in the form of high taxes. Ask a Britisher if he's happy with his healthcare system...

Answer 2

NO! The reasons are thusly: 1. Countries that offer free health care all have people waiting to get treatment. Some people who can afford it, leave Canada to get treatment in the US where they pay full price. People die waiting. 2. You've seen how well the DMV works and that's run by the gov't. Do you want to see the same smiling faces facing you with a needle? 3. The doctors all get the same pay no matter how good or mediocre they are. I like a system that rewards people for excelling. Because it's the patient that wins in the end. 4. If you need a heart or kidney transplant or some simple surgery something like your age could get you kicked off the list in a country that has free health care even if you have a willing donor such as a family member. So yeah HMO'S suck and it's horrible that not everyone here has health ins but a hospital can't turn anyone away who needs help so they do get help and it's much faster than if they had to wade through the socialist red tape of free health care.

Answer 3

I have live in societies with both so call free health care and the system we have. They both have their pros and cons, but I would have to vote with what we have now than the so call free. I will explain what would happen if we go to government health care. We would end up with a 2 tier system all wealthy and upper middle class citizens would go to a private system this system would have the best doctors the best facilities ,no waiting because they are being paid the market rates. The government system would be deluged by the poor there would be waiting list for operations the lowest scoring doctors would be hired by the government because the best would go to private, in malpractice situations it would difficult to get recompense, because you would not be able to sue the government,all you have to do is look around there is nothing that the government do that the private sector can't do more efficiently for those of you that want government health care I don't think you have have thought about the inequality that you will release on the nation , granted I know we need a better system to address those of us that don't have health care but the government is not it.

Answer 4

They provide protection against every common threat we face. Fire departments, police departments, even a military for threats real or imagined from distant lands. We have protections against all except what threatens us most; illness and disease. We all face this, have it absolutely in common, but for some reason we are left to the mercy of medical insurance that fewer and fewer of us can afford. The numbers that are bandied about are ludicrous. The real number of uninsured in this country is probably close to one hundred million with another hundred million so pitifully under-insured that they may as well not have it. Now I've never had the occasion to call the fire department, or the police, and have a funny feeling this country might be better off without a military, or at least a much smaller one, but I've paid taxes for these things for many, many years. I gladly would have traded these protections for a decent health care system.

Answer 5

We already provide health care to citizens, however it is often too little, too late!

Right now many people use the Emergency room as their primary care provider, which is very expensive, not cost effective, overkill, and often a rip-off.

Too many people currently are robbing money intended to provide health care! There is no reason I can thin of why the CEO of Anthem (one of 6 in 7 figures), a health care insurer, among hundreds of others, should be making 2 million dollars a year and a 12 Million dollar bonus! In addition, they pay their stockholders who didn't do a thing except invest money! And very safely with little risk! Where do they get the money? From average income people who they often deny benefits!

BC/BS takes a 25% cut off the top before they administer government programs and they have some of the best payed execs in the US!

We provide health care, though the low end type, to Medicaid repients, such as children, the elderly, and the disabled!

Hospitals are "Non-profit"! How do they maintain that? By giving huge salary increases and dumping their money into building things that are not needed! They make tons of profit, and very little is put into providing health care for people who can't afford their $20.00 Tylenol tabs! Do we need 17 hospitals in a 50 mile radius that does open heart surgery?

Yes, we need to provide healthcare: we need to provide health care, and we need to eliminate the middle men who are bilking the system out of BILLIONS and don't do much of anything constructive except increase insurance rates and rob people who do pay for insurance!

Moreover, it would be a great help to small business who can't compete with those who are monopolies. They can't maintain employees because they can't afford health insurance either!

If we can give the rich 2 tax cuts, run up the deficit by 3 1/2 Trillion in 6 years, we can certainly afford to give some of that to those who pay, but never get!

The "Reverse Robin Hood Mentality" needs to stop"! Redistribution of wealth by robbing the poor to give to the wealthy because some may "Trickle down" is a scam that never has worked! Ask David Stockman! Ironic it is the middle and poor individuals money they have already taken that is suppose to trickle down!

500 people have become millionaires just on money spent on the Iraq war! There is something fundamentally wrong with that! NO ONE should be making those kind of profits during a war, something unheard of prior to the 1960's! Many are making it by hiring illegals and doctoring their paper work!

Bottom line is we provide healthcare to people on an inconsistant basis with a lot of people getting rich! None of them are ones who have no "real" health care coverage, and most are using taxpayers to pick up the tab for many of the underinsured, as they rip them off by charging fees that are out of this world and are not the kind of profits many corporations make without doing a thing!!

Answer 6

If people aren't sick, they are more likely to work and pay taxes, instead of depending on society to provide for support of the individual. Lots of women who don't get adequate prenatal care, because they don't have insurance, have babies who are very sick, spend a lot of time in neonatal units, and are sometimes disabled for life. Right there, at the beginning, a problem can be created because there is no national health care. For the price of good prenatal care, you could have another potential taxpayer growing up, instead of someone who will be disabled for life. You can think of more. Just take it from there.

Answer 7

in Michigan right now the main reason the auto companies are having so many troubles is paying the health care costs for their retirees.in other countries with government health care the companies have no problem with health care.so a strong economy would be one reason.

Answer 8

Remember that many children dont have a father to support their family. Who else is going to pay for it, the single mother? No.

Answer 9

most of all the other countrys do it we dont do it because the government steal us to death

Answer 10

Resolution: "A just government should provide health care to its citizens."

Ruben Hinojosa, an American politician once said that "At their core, people all want the same basic things: a quality education for their children, a good job so they can provide for their families, healthcare and affordable prescription drugs, security during retirement, a strongly equipped military and national security." Unfortunately, according to this, we cannot say the we have the basics of life provided for us by the government--"health care and affordable prescription drugs" are out of reach for an immense population of our society. With the current health care system of today, there are many people, citizens of our country, unable to live happily because of their lack of health care.

For this, I affirm this resolution, that "A just government should provide health care to its citizens."

For the sake of clarity in today's case, I will offer the following definitions:

Health Care: The prevention, treatment, and management of illness and the preservation of mental and physical well-being through the services offered by the medical and allied health professions. -American Heritage Dictionary Fourth Edition

Just: Behaving a way that is morally right and fair.

Citizen: a legally recognized subject of a state or commonwealth, either native or naturalized.

Should: is obligated to in order to fit the criteria of just

Provide: to make available without prior obligation

My value for today's debate is Societal Welfare, which I define as the well-being of our society and the people within it.

To support this value, I offer the following criterion of the Social Contract, written by John Locke. In this he states that the government was made to provide citizens with their basic rights, among these life, liberty and property. Also, in the United States law, due process, stressed in the fifth amendment, is the principle that the government must respect all of a person's legal rights instead of just some or most of those legal rights when the government deprives a person of life, liberty, or property. Life, provided primarily by health care, then therefore fits into the criterion of Societal Welfare.




Contention 1: By providing its citizens with health care, the government is doing its job by upholding citizens' natural rights.

Subpoint A: The Social Contract, written by John Locke, states that people have the right to life, liberty, and property. By giving its people health care, one of the most basic of needs for people, it fulfills the Social Contract by providing its citizens with life. The government is obligated to fulfill its duties to the citizens as well, and without such a basic need as life, the government surely wouldn't be acting as a just authority. Then, there is liberty. Without basic health coverage, a sick person would not be able to do what most other people with sufficient care could accomplish, thus hindering his liberty to fulfill his potential as a person. Since the Social Contract states that people have the right to life, the hindrance does not comply with the value of Locke's contract, and therefore does not comply with the value of societal welfare either.

Subpoint B: Some countries, such as the US, add the pursuit of happiness to natural rights. Without their health (which is necessary for livelihood and productivity), people are unable to pursue happiness in ways such as economy. Additionally, a study proves that without the proper health care, 20% of our people would not be able to pursue things that could benefit their happiness and our country as a whole. This ties in with societal welfare as well, because the productivity of our nation helps our society as a whole.

Subpoint C: If the government wasn't providing one of the basic traits essential to human rights it would certainly not be a "just" government. Just is defined as guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness. With our way of medical care today, in the US for instance, it is anything from just and fair. Health Care is provided primarily from employment, or direct purchase from an individual provider. This cuts off the other 46 million citizens of America, unable to afford health care and therefore neglected by a government obligated to fulfill its citizens' basic needs. This violates their natural right to life, because in the case of the US, health care is selective and not universal, while the natural right of life should be universal to all citizens.

Subpoint D: It is also proven that the idea of a universal health care plan from a government to its citizens is the most cost-effective plan. In fact, the only two countries that don't use this form of health care are the US and South Africa. Our national income is called the GnP, or Gross National Product--in our current system, 15% of our GnP goes into health care. Take Australia, however. They use only 8% of their GnP on health care. The US has the largest and most technologically powerful economy in the world, with a per capita GDP of $42,000. That's $42,000 per family, every year. With an extra 7% like Australia, we would come up with 865 billion, 200 million dollars to spend for things like education, etc. The education of our society creates more educated people, who, in turn, benefit our society as a whole with their ideas. Therefore, Universal health care contributes to Societal Welfare indirectly through money spent in other funds such as education.




Contention 2: The system of health care that we employ today admits racist and possibly sexist ideals into its operation, thus completely disregarding the value of equality.

Subpoint A: Today, doctors have the choice of location for their offices, and they therefore choose, as a majority, to stay away from the lower-income areas and inner city residents, who also happen to be one of the groups most in need. People in the inner city then therefore don't receive equality like the middle and high-class residents. Since the US health care system does not decide where health care is located, those who live involuntarily in urban, overcrowded inner-city areas, they naturally attend public hospitals--understaffed, and dirty. On the contrary, middle to upper class citizens generally have the money to attend private, clean hospitals. This, therefore, does not support the value of equality because there is an obvious disparity of medical treatment within the different levels of our society.

Subpoint B: The people in the inner city don't necesarrily receive no health care. Granted, governments have passed laws to reduce the number of uninsured people. However, one of such, called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) serves people with employment and people with employment only; I quote: "If you find a new job that offers health coverage, or if you are eligible for coverage under a family member's employment-based plan …" As you can see, the HIPAA, or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, clearly does not pertain to the tremendous amount of unemployed citizens that reside in our country. With the health care system that the US supports today, we cannot possibly provide basic human needs to everyone. Therefore, people are left with different levels of health care, either some health care, not health care, or a good amount of health care. This demotes the value of equality in that way.

written myself, in case you wondering about plagiarization.

and thanks, i hope i was helpful.