Reminder: students must register as league members before they’re eligible to compete.
Reminder: students must register as league members before they’re eligible to compete.
To excel in debate, students need head knowledge, case ideas, and resources—from a variety of different perspectives—on the resolution.
This page is your “one stop shop” to gain a better understanding of the current team policy debate resolution.
Resources include articles, books, cases, media, and websites.
We are excited about this resolution because it will allow our students to dive into a very current and challenging topic—the current health care affordability crises, along with incorporating sound economic and constitutional principles. A great combination!
As you begin working with your students, we encourage you to explore affirmative cases that are in alignment with the constitution as well as sound Biblical principles. (Although we do not quote scripture in debate rounds, within public policy some policies support a good Biblical viewpoint while other are contrary to those principles.) As coaches, you have an important influence on the cases that your students run. Take the time while introducing this new resolution to steer students toward solutions that reflect limited government and good economic policies.
Thoughts and ideas about the resolution:
Specifics about the resolution wording
The “actor” in the resolution is the United States federal government (USFG). So, it needs to be the federal government (or a USFG agency) that is going to be doing the “reform”.
Notice that the “reform” needs to be “substantial”. In other words, the size of the change (reform) needs to be either large (quantitative) or really important (qualitative). [Note: Don’t get the size of the reform, which is dictated by the resolution and therefore part of Topicality, confused with the stock issue of Significance which has to do with the size of the problem that is being addressed.]
The result of the reform needs to be that there is a decrease in health care costs. However, notice that it does not say “who” has a decrease in costs. It could be the consumer (patient), it could be insurance companies, it could be the economy in general. This was left vague on purpose. Also, notice that the words “health care” are used here versus earlier in the resolution in which the term “healthcare” is used. “Healthcare” primarily refers to a system that deliveries medical care.
On September 20-21, the Institute for Principle Studies is hosting a topical conference pertaining to the LFA 2024-2025 debate resolution. Learn more about the event here. Students participating in LFA are encouraged to attend this event to learn about the state of healthcare in America.
Check under each tab for helpful information pertaining to the current team policy debate resolution.
Note: Listing sources on this page does not imply that the content falls within the scope of the resolution, and LFA does not necessarily endorse the positions of any posted sources. If debaters want to use this information as evidence in a debate round, they must cite the original source and not the LFA website.
https://www.goodmaninstitute.org/2024/08/14/why-health-policy-problems-rarely-get-solved/
https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/HealthCare_Facts_WEB_FINAL.pdf
https://opentodebate.org/debate/childhood-obesity-guidelines-good-medicine-or-too-extreme/
https://principlestudies.org/principle-perspective/health-care-america/
https://www.hoover.org/research/costs-regulation-and-centralization-health-care
https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/report/reforming-graduate-medical-education-the-us
https://heartland.org/opinion/two-paths-forward-for-healthcare/
https://solutions2024.pgpf.org
https://heartland.org/publications/the-american-health-care-plan-2/
Code Blue: Health Care in Crisis by
Priceless: Curing the Healthcare Crisis by John C. Goodman
Possible Case List – This is just a sample of potential cases. Students should research an area of healthcare policy that interests them. This makes researching and learning about how policy affects its citizens more exciting!
In the big picture view of health insurance, we have a broken 3rd party payer system that results in higher cost, delays in care, and poor health outcomes. Doctors are more beholden to what is best for the insurance companies versus what is best for the patient. We are direct payers for most of our consumer purchases, why should health care be different? As radical as this may sound, many medical centers around the country are starting to move in this direction and eliminate insurance payments. This gives control back to the patient regarding their health care. Since the federal government is tangled up in this because of tax breaks to employers who offer insurance plans to their employees, a plan action could include getting rid of this tax benefit for the company. There are many potential plans when thinking about how to change/abolish health insurance.
Medical cost sharing programs such as Medi-Share and Samaritan Ministries should be allowed in all states. In the current system, some states are more favorable to this than others and some medical offices refuse to accept payment that doesn’t come from a “regular” insurance company. While it appears to be a “federal government overreach” in allowing this in every state, in reality what we have now is the government dictating to private businesses (the medical sharing companies) where they can and cannot have their businesses.
Abolish Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) that did nothing to reduce medical costs and created a blatantly unconstitutional penalty that is issued by the IRS if a person does not have health insurance. That could be changed. An affirmative plan could also address how we would actually help the poor and give them better health care by getting rid of socialized medicine (ACA).
At first glance the focus may be on ways to change the federal healthcare system so that it is more affordable. However, students may want to research the ways that good health (therefore reduced health care costs) can be promoted such as by changes in the USDA guidelines (revamping the food pyramid) or ideas such as giving employers (and/or employees) a tax break for enrollment in gyms and fitness programs. There are so many options.
Outside of club or class meetings, students spend ample time researching various cases. Students research both supportive and negative evidence against many possible cases. It is not unusual for students to spend five hours per week researching information on the team policy debate resolution during the competition season.
As students research the resolution, they will be looking at credible sources for evidence. The following list contains several think tank and non-profit organizations that research public policy issues. These groups represent a wide variety of political parties and beliefs. They’ll help students as they learn more about the topic as well as different sides of the debate.
Please Note: Being listed does not constitute an endorsement of ideology, philosophy, policy positions, etc.