[Limited Topic] Government Regulation

[Dad]

This will be a unique topic.  It will last a maximum of 72 hours before it is closed.  During that time, you may debate freely (while abiding by section rules) as you please.

• The comment with the most quotes or replies will be used to head a separate discussion for a limited time.
• The member who replies most frequently to the leading comment will be asked to engage in a one on one debate with the lead comment poster, publicly, until one party concedes.
• The winner of the one on one debate will be presented with a prize title and be asked to decide the next Limited Topic for debate.

Your question is this:

 

What part of human health should the United States government take part in?  Why or why not?  Provide information and sources with your responses.

 

A few things to note:

• In relation to human health, no topic is off limits in this discussion.  This includes abortion, insurance, obesity, and anything else you can think of. 
• All debate rules apply.  Debate in a civil manner.  You're not children.
• You should be debating logically, not emotionally.  Debate smart or your opposition will pick you apart.

 

[mido9]

I don't know how this topic works but ok it's better than a dead thred

 

On just normal healthcare and insurance, it should only be limited to instant emergency care if someone is legitimately on the verge of dying, just bill them later if they're able to pay or something.

 

Why?

If healthcare gets subsidized massively, nobody's going to want to take care of their own health, or do their best to not get unhealthy, or get the insurance on time, or eat healthily, or other normal things, or etc, and it ends up being an enormous burden on everyone else who actually did do the work, it's a huge waste of society's resources that could've been used for better purposes(and healthcare is expensive. What gets spent on curing preventable illnesses could've been spent actually developing a cure for cancer or designing a new medical machine or w/e, or even just spent on treating CURRENT EXISTING illnesses)

 

It just massively ruins incentives to be healthy and prepared and do things efficiently at the expense of everything and that's no good.

[Dad]

 

If healthcare gets subsidized massively, nobody's going to want to take care of their own health, or do their best to not get unhealthy, or get the insurance on time, or eat healthily, or other normal things, or etc

 

Where's your supporting evidence to this?

[mido9]

Where's your supporting evidence to this?

Common sense. People respond to incentives and it's a big relief to not have to worry about moneyand be able to do any ruinous activity you want.

[Sunshine Jesse]

Common sense. People respond to incentives and it's a big relief to not have to worry about moneyand be able to do any ruinous activity you want.

"Common sense" isn't evidence, especially in the realm of policy.  "You're going to die in like 40 years" simply isn't registered as a strong incentive in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the populace, and we have tons of evidence for this fact in America itself, where people are literally dropping dead due to obesity despite our draconian health insurance policies. You're way too idealistic and hopeful on this issue, because everything we've seen shows the exact opposite of what you believe.

 

That being said, I don't have the patience or energy to effortpost on this issue right now, so I'll leave it at that.

[mido9]

"Common sense" isn't evidence, especially in the realm of policy.  "You're going to die in like 40 years" simply isn't registered as a strong incentive in the minds of the overwhelming majority of the populace, and we have tons of evidence for this fact in America itself, where people are literally dropping dead due to obesity despite our draconian health insurance policies. You're way too idealistic and hopeful on this issue, because everything we've seen shows the exact opposite of what you believe.

 

That being said, I don't have the patience or energy to effortpost on this issue right now, so I'll leave it at that.

I really don't want to bother you but I genuinely don't understand your point, like yeah people will still be horribly reckless even when there's no safety net, but that's a "you can't fix stupid" problem at that point.

[Sunshine Jesse]

I really don't want to bother you but I genuinely don't understand your point, like yeah people will still be horribly reckless even when there's no safety net, but that's a "you can't fix stupid" problem at that point.

I'm saying that the stupid is so overwhelmingly prevalent that it negates your whole point. People don't respond to incentives in the way you think they do.