Debate Competition

I’m Looking For Some Help On Writing A Debate Case! The Resolution Is The United States Federal Government Should Substantialy Increase Social Services For Those Living In Poverty In The United States. What Do You Think Is A Good Social Service To Expand And Write A Case Over? And Do You Know Any Sites That Can Help Me Get Started? Thanks!

Health care is a good service to expand — and it’s current topic of debate. To get you started, please note that the rest of the developed world has slightly longer life expectancy than the USA, slightly lower infant mortality than the USA, and they all pay *considerably* less for the privilege (numbers and sources below).

Here’s the key point: when health care is expensive, people don’t go for regular doctor checkups, and thus they miss out on preventative care. In countries with universal health care (all the countries below) the citizens enjoy both longer life expectancies and lower costs. So the claim to make is that once we implement universal health care, we will start to get preventative care and that will bring our costs down in line with the rest of the developed world. It won’t happen instantaneously, because we have a backlog of people who missed out on preventative care, but in the long run universal care will both lower costs and increase lifetimes of American citizens.

In the table below, im = infant mortality and L = life expectancy. See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004393.html for mortality and life; see http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/46/33/38979719.pdf for costs. All figures are from the year 2007

United States — im= 6.4, L= 78.0, cost $7290, 16.0% of GDP
Canada ——— im= 4.6, L= 80.3, cost $3895, 10.1% of GDP

Austria ——– im= 4.5, L= 79.2, cost $3763, 10.1% of GDP
United Kingdom — im= 5.0, L= 78.7, cost $3895, 8.4% of GDP
Denmark —— im= 4.5, L= 78.0, cost $3362, 10.4% of GDP
Finland ——- im= 3.5, L= 78.7, cost $2840, 8.2% of GDP
France ——– im= 4.2, L= 79.9, cost $4763, 11.0% of GDP
Germany —— im= 4.1, L= 79.0, cost $3527, 10.4% of GDP
Greece ——– im= 5.3, L= 79.4, cost $2727, 9.6% of GDP
Italy ———– im= 5.7, L= 79.9, cost $2686, 8.7% of GDP
Norway ——- im= 3.6, L= 79.7, cost $4763, 8.9% of GDP
Spain ——— im= 4.3, L= 79.8, cost $2671, 8.5% of GDP
Sweden ——- im= 2.8, L= 80.6, cost $3323, 9.1% of GDP
Switzerland — im= 4.3, L= 80.6, cost $4417, 10.8% of GDP

USA has 36 days longer life expectancy than these two countries!
Ireland ——- im= 5.2, L= 77.9, cost $3424, 7.6% of GDP
Portugal —– im= 4.9, L= 77.9, cost $2150, 9.9% of GDP

According to David Frum (special assistant to president, 2001-2), between 2000 and 2007, the cost of the average insurance policy for a family of four doubled. See http://www.newmajority.com/the-bush-economic-record-blame-healthcare In this question I show a back-of-the envelope estimate of the cost of maintaining the status quo http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AirVVzkXd37O1CEFU8feEo3ty6IX;_ylv=3?qid=20090916131445AAO0ltM&show=7#profile-info-S4549Rqwaa We can’t afford to maintain the status quo, but if we did it would cost $8 to $9 trillion spread over the next 10 years.

Some folks blame our high costs on malpractice insurance. But the numbers don’t support that. Including legal fees, insurance costs, and payouts, the cost of the suits comes to less than 1.5 percent of health-care spending. See http://www.insurance-reform.org/pr/AIRhealthcosts.pdf and http://makethemaccountable.com/myth/RisingCostOfMedicalMalpracticeInsurance.htm Along those lines, it’s interesting to note that a number of states already have "caps and tort reform" yet the insurance companies have not lowered the cost of malpractice insurance in those states. Finally, most malpractice cases occur in state court where the Federal government has no juristiction. See http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/09/debating-the-cap.html#more
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