PHI103 Informal Logic FINAL PAPER

Main Argument:

P1: healthcare is a right of every person

P2: healthcare is very sensitive

P3: the sensitivity of healthcare and the right to it has resulted to legislative involvement to avoid malpractices.

P4: partly malpractices involved have resulted to economic difference among people.

P5: economic concern would help secure the future of healthcare in terms of quality and costs.

C: therefore the right to healthcare ensures healthcare is available regardless of ability to pay.

Counterargument:

P1: sensitivity of health care and the right is not should not be imposed to other people in the name of economic differences.

P2: preferring to attend to the rich first is justifiable not a malpractice

P3: future quality and cost of healthcare cannot be secured by lowering cost of services

C: therefore, healthcare sensitivity should be addressed basing on other factors than lowering cost of healthcare at the expense of jeopardizing the quality of health service.

The first premise can sound self-centered but justified. Actually, not all moral hazard are inefficient. A policy benefit represents people moving into a less-comprehensive coverage. This is drawn from people having the “skin of the game” theory,-of the total health spending, they share the most- will forego unneeded care which they had purchased recently reason being they were not taking its full cost. This problem is referred to as a moral hazard in economics. This brings on board the idea that there exists an optimal level of sharing of costs and that partly, the health care purchased in additional represents inefficiency in the economy. However, the theory raises eyebrows by addressing the issue as though, without the income transferable to the sick through insurance, they will not have access to healthcare services.

A welfare gain is generated and inefficiency is exhibited in this theory (Nyman, 2007). When the idea of cost sharing is widely increased, consumers are most likely to encounter cost from their pockets when making decisions concerning whether to seek medical care or boycott. The consequence to this is reduced budget on medical expenditure. A reduced cost in expenditure on medication does not necessarily mean that you have helped yourself by helping another person who cannot afford medical bills. In other words this simply means, somebody who could fully cater for his/her medical expenses has been disabled by the law of sharing. Dieses can kill any time at any stage. As said on proposal argument, health is indeed sensitive and should be taken with great gravity. Full recovery is vital and therefore make somebody pay somebody else at the expense of his own health is questionable.

As far as the second premise is concerned, in the recent decades, medical practice environment has changed significantly. There have been a declining income reduced autonomy, and increased administrative burdens. A research carried out showed that in 1995-2003, there was a decline of about 7 percent in the income of physicians from medical practice, which is contrary to the patterns of other technical workers and professionals. The resultant factor to this effect is majorly attributed to a decline in fee payment from private and public payers. (Tu and Ginsburg, 2006). Furthermore, every professional aims at fully exercising his/her professionalism with the aim that it will earn them a living. If my reducing cost of your service makes you unable to pay your bills, what do you do? Quit the field? And if all doctors quitted, what will happen to the sick? Die with money in their bank accounts.

My third premise follows soot as we cannot measure accurately the cost of health care due to its complexity. Treatment of a patient requires several varieties of resources, space, equipment, personnel and supplies. Each requirement has its requirement and cost. Trying to blame medical officers for the vital services they offer as being the cost of high medical cost is doomed to fail. Also, trends do change. The change being exhibited today will definitely take a different dimension tomorrow. Decisions taken today can be a great consequence tomorrow.

In conclusion, solutions which are serious and substantial can be found anywhere else without affecting the quality healthcare services. The health reform body established the Independent Payment Advisory Board whose agenda was stopping growth in the cost of medical care without coverage quality of care or sacrificing coverage. Experts should thus make their decisions by instituting such modes among a series of other alternatives, than focusing on decisions made by medical practitioners of which at some point are justified.

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