Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Party Chairmen, Young Proteges Debate Health Care at East High
Posted by Jackson Baker on Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 10:56 PM
- JB
- GOP chairman Wiseman makes a point, while Democratic chair Turner gets ready to rebut
Notwithstanding a typographical error in the event program, Lang Wiseman is still Shelby County Republican chairman, not one of two county Democratic chairs.
Both Wiseman and his student cohort, Terrance Pigues of East High School, made it abundantly clear Tuesday night that their attitudes toward proposed health care legislation differ significantly from those of county Democratic chair Van Turner and his student partner for the evening, Ashton Alexander of Memphis Health Careers Academy.
Under the auspices of the Memphis Urban Debate League, the two teams of debaters kept a bipartisan audience of onlookers entertained as they held forth in the East High School auditorium on the subject “Resolved: The United States federal government should provide universal healthcare to persons living in the U.S.”
In a debate that was conducted according to strict and formal debating rules, all four participants made compelling arguments — the Democratic team for the affirmative, the GOP twosome for the negative.
Alexander and Turner early on invoked Senator Olympia Snowe, presidential candidate Bob Dole, and former Senator Bill Frist as Republican eminences who were on record as favoring something like the Baucus bill which passed muster with the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday.
Pigues and Wiseman acknowledged the need for remedial action on health care but suggested that the solution lay in expanding the number of free-market solutions rather than encouraging more hands-on action by the government.
The debate at East High corresponded more or less to the shape and particulars of recent debates between the parties in Congress.
Some decent rhetoric got said, Wiseman maintaining at one point, ”It is not compassionate in my view to give somebody something that can only fall apart,” while Turner responded to his opposite number’s warning about rising federal costs by citing former President Bush’s expenditures on the Iraq War: “We pay to kill, but we don’t pay to live. Those are Americans dying [from lack of health care], not Iraqis.”
There were squelches: A question from the floor responded to the Democratic team’s contention that X number of people without health insurance died last year by asking, “How many people with health insurance died last year?”
And there were missed squelches: Both Republican debaters got away with saying that 10 percent of all Medicare claims were fraudulent without drawing, by way of retort, the obvious question: What percentage of private-insurance health claims are fraudulent?
All in all, the debaters on both sides were cordial toward each other and in good form, and each team was supported by a fair number of cadres in the auditorium, who also behaved agreeably toward their counterparts on the other side.
But there was no meeting of the twain afterward when the two chairmen were each asked to comment on Tuesday’s victory of Republican Pat Marsh over Democrat Ty Cobb in a special election to fill a state House vacancy in District 62. Wiseman thought that was just fine, while Turner opined it was unfortunate.
Comments (7)
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Why did the Resolved entitle all "persons living in the U.S." rather than entitling U.S. citizens?
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Two points:
1. "What percentage of private-insurance health claims are fraudulent?" The question is irrelevant. In a private system, I'm free to leave a program that has lots of fraud for a better-run program, or even sue to recover losses. In a public "universal" system, there is no such recourse; I'm stuck with it no matter how bad it gets.
2. Notice that the public debate has been over "health care reform" but the subject of the debate is "universal health care" which reform supporters have been at pains to say isn't their "real" goal. I guess we can see that it is.
If you're going to talk real reform, then decouple health insurance from employment. Costs will drop. Also, let nationwide insurance companies sell their products nationally, across state lines. Costs will drop. And back insurance companies out of the doctor-patient relationship via regulation and a lightening of the paperwork load. Costs will drop.
And, if you're peddling "universal" health care, let the government prove it can do that with speed and efficiency and a high level of care by first cleaning up Medicare and the Veterans system. Fix them and then we'll talk. Leave those messes alone, then you're selling me snake oil and I ain't buyin'.
The resolution selected for the debate was among one of three submitted to the Party Chairmen for their review. Several weeks ago, over lunch at the Commissary, it was agreed by both party chairmen to debate the resolution: Resolved: The United States federal government should provide universal healthcare to persons living in the United States.
We at the Memphis Urban Debate League Advisory Board want to thank both party chairmen and their staffs for the long hours of preparation and their ticket sales to support this event. This was primarily a fundraising event designed to help keep the Memphis Urban debate League program operating in MCS.
Jim Sdoia
President
Memphis Urban Debate League Advisory Board
Health care is not a function of the Federal Government according to the US Constitution. The Feds have often appealed to the Commerce Clause, but this is defined in the Federalist Papers. They are to prevent tolls or taxes on imports/exports and maintain free travel and access among the states. They cannot act in 'intrastate' activity by attempting to control every usage of an import/export, i.e. medicines and supplies that cross state lines. They can't use the General Welfare Clause either, as this 'general' category is defined by within the same Article. Due to ignorance of the Constitution and historical documents, the general masses remain easily led astray. Our Fed has been illegally involved in that area for decades; both Republican and Democrat.
I was at the debate, and I must say that the event was a critical display of the urgent need to (1)reform our health care system and (2)universally provide coverage to all American.It is clear that the affirmative proved that their proposal does both;thus revitalizes and sustains U.S leadership.
In addition, I was extremely impressed by Ashton Alexander at health academy; he is a lawyer in the making!! I hope to see him in the future.
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