How to Destroy an Athiests in a argument! (Updated with poll)

[Mendicate Bias]

badgenome said:

Saying that is fine and well, but there are economic realities that that approach doesn't take into account. It is an emotional argument, not a logical one. There comes a point when governments have to say "no" just like insurance companies do, and I think more and more developed countries will face that problem as their demographic situations continue to deteriorate. How it's better to have that done by a government bureaucrat for the sake of a nation's finances instead of an assessor for the sake of his company's finances, I'm not really sure.

Assume for the sake of argument that a truly free, for profit health care market (which we don't have, as the health care system is up to its nuts in government intervention) could provide better services to more people. Would that still be immoral because it's for profit? Or, because health care is a "right", should a country be willing to spend a limitless amount of money on any sick child even if it brings financial ruin on everyone (including many more children, sick and healthy alike) because it's our duty? Is it maybe better to arrange help for such people through other means than the government?

American life expectancies skew lower on average than Europeans', not because of our health care system, but for a host of other reasons: lifestyles, obesity,  greater ethnic diversity, and so on. Americans were for a long time the heaviest smokers in the developed world, and removing smoking related deaths from the equation would move the US into the top half of developed countries for life expectancy. Now that Americans have stopped smoking at a faster rate than any other country, it is thought that the longevity gap might disappear altogether.

While I admit some of our health outcomes are as a result of an American lifestyle, we still rank low in health indicators that have nothing to do with lifestyle. We are 34th in the world when it comes to infant mortality rate. In fact looking at our closest neighbor in Canada, the only way in which we are more healthy than them is our lower rate of cigarette smoking. US residents have higher rates of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, arthritis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. This is because almost every person in first world countries other than the US have a regular doctor that they see on a consistent basis. This leads to preventative medicine, instead of reactive medicine. Treating someone once a disease has already become chronic is not an optimal system. You can point to wait times for procedures being longer in Canada, however studies have shown that only elective procedures have increased wait times, essential procedures have the exact same time frame. In fact there is not a single recorded case of a death due to procedure wait times in Canada.

Your next point assumes that it would take a limitless amount of money to ensure everyone has healthcare which is completely untrue. By nationalizing healthcare and insuring that health care is no longer a for-profit business we would significantly decrease costs. Looking at the amount spent on healthcare as a percentage of gdp, US spends 17.4 percent of gdp to Norway's 9.6 percent. So the US spends a higher percentage of its gdp than Norway, which has the most nationalized healthcare system in the developed world. This holds true across the board, including countries like Switzerland, Netherlands and Luxembourg. Oh and by the way, all these countries are healthier than us too.