Interesting parallels with the Canadian fight for universal healthcare

[auditor0007]

The Canadian Press: Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors


so much for the great Canadian health care system

I will admit that the Canadian system has some big problems. Considering that they only spend half of what we do in the US, this is very understandable. Maybe they should increase revenues a bit to address their cost issues. They could increase spending by 50% and still pay a lot less than we do. Of course, they will need to collect more and that is an argument that must be made to the people of Canada. Healthcare isn't free, but Canadians can have great healthcare with their current system if they pay for it, and they can do so while keeping it much cheaper than it is in the US.

"The U.S., then, seems to be paying far more to insure a smaller share of its population—to be paying more for less.
There are several flaws in this reasoning, first and foremost its claim that a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. America’s health-care sector is larger partly because, unlike Canada’s, it includes for-profit corporations. Consider the benefit: companies invest billions each year developing innovative, life-saving drugs and devices. Are these expenses really something to lament? Similarly, is it a disadvantage that the U.S. has 11 percent more practicing doctors per capita than Canada? Or 15 percent more nurses? Is it a problem that the United States has almost four times as many MRI scanners per capita as Canada does, or that we preventively test more of our population for common cancers? Hardly. The fact that America’s health-care system is larger, more advanced, and better staffed than a system with rationed care is an advantage. To pretend otherwise is just a tactic to make the reform pill easier to swallow."
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

You are missing the point. If Canada and the UK spent even 50% more, they would have all these things, and they still would spend less than us in the US. The biggest problem with the government run option is that cost savings many times does become the priority. Of course, one thing that is rarely mentioned is that the UK's system also allows supplemental insurance for those who choose to pay for it. Because the public system covers most care, the supplemental insurance is fairly inexpensive, but it does give people some extra options that are not available to those who choose to just go with the NHS.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I will admit that the Canadian system has some big problems. Considering that they only spend half of what we do in the US, this is very understandable. Maybe they should increase revenues a bit to address their cost issues. They could increase spending by 50% and still pay a lot less than we do. Of course, they will need to collect more and that is an argument that must be made to the people of Canada. Healthcare isn't free, but Canadians can have great healthcare with their current system if they pay for it, and they can do so while keeping it much cheaper than it is in the US.

"The U.S., then, seems to be paying far more to insure a smaller share of its population—to be paying more for less.
There are several flaws in this reasoning, first and foremost its claim that a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. America’s health-care sector is larger partly because, unlike Canada’s, it includes for-profit corporations. Consider the benefit: companies invest billions each year developing innovative, life-saving drugs and devices. Are these expenses really something to lament? Similarly, is it a disadvantage that the U.S. has 11 percent more practicing doctors per capita than Canada? Or 15 percent more nurses? Is it a problem that the United States has almost four times as many MRI scanners per capita as Canada does, or that we preventively test more of our population for common cancers? Hardly. The fact that America’s health-care system is larger, more advanced, and better staffed than a system with rationed care is an advantage. To pretend otherwise is just a tactic to make the reform pill easier to swallow."
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

You are missing the point. If Canada and the UK spent even 50% more, they would have all these things, and they still would spend less than us in the US. The biggest problem with the government run option is that cost savings many times does become the priority. Of course, one thing that is rarely mentioned is that the UK's system also allows supplemental insurance for those who choose to pay for it. Because the public system covers most care, the supplemental insurance is fairly inexpensive, but it does give people some extra options that are not available to those who choose to just go with the NHS.

"If Canada and the UK spent even 50% more, they would have all these things..."
You know this how?
Please show same, including how you know that doctors who leave Canada for higher pay in the US would not continue to do so.


"... the government run option is that cost savings many times does become the priority..."
And you somehow see this in the fact that Medicare costs are beyond original estimates by a factor of nine?


"...UK's system also allows supplemental insurance for those who choose to pay for it. "
Canada's does not, although their Supreme Court has recently decided to reverse same.


"...Because the public system covers most care, the supplemental insurance is fairly inexpensive."
Incorrect. The big factor is the containment of lawsuit costs in Canada.
Be aware, there is no tort reform in ObamaCare, even though the cost of 'defensive medicine' is fifteen times more than the profits of the entire industry.

You are far too smart to be defending this industry take-over in any respect.

 

[Toro]

I've known several people with cancer in Canada, including family members. Generally, the treatment has been good.

Shhhh.....

Don't tell them the truth.

Let them live in their FoxNews fantasy where America does everything better than all the other countries in the world.

SASKATOON — The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.
Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.
"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."
The Canadian Press: Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors

This is because Canada is facing the same problems as every other country is regarding health care - rising costs and how to pay for it.

But despite this, Canadians do not want to change the fundamental system of healthcare.

 

[Skull Pilot]

The Canadian Press: Overhauling health-care system tops agenda at annual meeting of Canada's doctors


so much for the great Canadian health care system

I will admit that the Canadian system has some big problems. Considering that they only spend half of what we do in the US, this is very understandable. Maybe they should increase revenues a bit to address their cost issues. They could increase spending by 50% and still pay a lot less than we do. Of course, they will need to collect more and that is an argument that must be made to the people of Canada. Healthcare isn't free, but Canadians can have great healthcare with their current system if they pay for it, and they can do so while keeping it much cheaper than it is in the US.

"The U.S., then, seems to be paying far more to insure a smaller share of its population—to be paying more for less.
There are several flaws in this reasoning, first and foremost its claim that a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. America’s health-care sector is larger partly because, unlike Canada’s, it includes for-profit corporations. Consider the benefit: companies invest billions each year developing innovative, life-saving drugs and devices. Are these expenses really something to lament? Similarly, is it a disadvantage that the U.S. has 11 percent more practicing doctors per capita than Canada? Or 15 percent more nurses? Is it a problem that the United States has almost four times as many MRI scanners per capita as Canada does, or that we preventively test more of our population for common cancers? Hardly. The fact that America’s health-care system is larger, more advanced, and better staffed than a system with rationed care is an advantage. To pretend otherwise is just a tactic to make the reform pill easier to swallow."
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

Craig S. Karpel: We Don’t Spend Enough on Health Care - WSJ.com

Americans are being urged to worry about the nation spending 17% of its gross domestic product each year on health care—a higher percentage than any other country. Addressing the American Medical Association in June, Barack Obama said, "Make no mistake: The cost of our health care is a threat to our economy." But the president is mistaken. Japan spends 8% of its GDP on health care—the same as Zimbabwe. South Korea and Haiti both spend 6%. Monaco spends 5%, which is what Afghanistan spends. Do all of these countries have economies that are less "threatened" than that of the U.S.?

No. So there must be other factors that affect the health of a nation's economy.

Mr. Obama has said that "the cost of health care has weighed down our economy." No one thinks the 20% of our GDP that's attributable to manufacturing is weighing down the economy, because it's intuitively clear that one person's expenditure on widgets is another person's income. But the same is true of the health-care industry. The $2.4 trillion Americans spend each year for health care doesn't go up in smoke. It's paid to other Americans.

The basic material needs of human beings are food, clothing and shelter. The desire for food and clothing drove hunter-gatherer economies and, subsequently, agricultural economies, for millennia. The Industrial Revolution was driven by the desire for clothing. Thus Richard Arkwright's water frame, James Hargreaves's spinning jenny, Samuel Crompton's spinning mule, Eli Whitney's cotton gin and Elias Howe's sewing machine.

Though it hasn't been widely realized, the desire for shelter was a major driver of the U.S. economy during the second half of the 20th century and the first several years of the 21st. About one-third of the new jobs created during the latter period were directly or indirectly related to housing, as the stupendous ripple effect of the bursting housing bubble should make painfully obvious.

Once these material needs are substantially met, desire for health care—without which there can be no enjoyment of food, clothing or shelter—becomes a significant, perhaps a principal, driver of the economy.

A little-noticed feature of the current recession is the role of the health-care industry as a resilient driver of the general economy. Health-care now accounts for 10.4% of nonfarm employment. Health-care employment grew by 19,600 jobs in July 2009, on a par with the average monthly gain for the first half of 2009, which was down from an average monthly increase of 30,000 in 2008. Remarkably, these gains occurred in a period during which total employment shrank by 6.7 million.

The U.S. health-care economy should be viewed not as a burden but as an engine of growth. Medical and orthopedic equipment exports increased by 65.1% from 2004 through 2008. Pharmaceutical exports were up 74.6%. The unprecedented advances expected to come out of American stem cell, nanotechnology and human genome research—which other countries' constricted health sectors cannot support—will send these already impressive figures skyward.

A study by Deloitte LLP has found that more than 400,000 non-U.S. residents obtained medical care in the U.S. in 2008, and it forecasts an annual increase of 3%. Some 3.5% of inpatient procedures at U.S. hospitals were performed on international patients, many of them escaping from Canada's supposedly superior health system.

"Inbound medical tourism," Deloitte stated, "is primarily driven by the search for high-quality care without extensive waiting periods. Foreign patients are willing to pay more for care within the United States if these two factors play a large role." The deficiencies of the foreign health-care systems the Obama administration wishes to emulate can be counted on to generate ever-increasing revenues for U.S. providers and employment for Americans.

In a 2007 study, Stanford University economists Robert E. Hall (who will take office next year as president of the American Economic Association) and Charles I. Jones reported that modeling they've conducted has found that mid-21st century U.S. health-care expenditures would optimally amount to 30% of GDP or more. They wrote:

"We examine the allocation of resources that maximizes social welfare in our model. We abstract from the complicated institutions that shape spending in the United States and ask a more basic question: from a social welfare standpoint, how much should the nation spend on health care, and what is the time path of optimal health spending? . . .

"Viewed from every angle, our results support the proposition that both historical and future increases in the health spending share are desirable. . . . [W]e believe it likely that maximizing social welfare in the United States will require the development of institutions that are consistent with spending 30 percent or more of GDP on health by the middle of the century."

The administration's health-care plan is biased toward bean-counting rather than designed to maximize American physical and mental well-being. We need to ask ourselves whether there is truly anything more valuable to us than our loved ones and our own health and longevity.

In the signature radio sketch of Jack Benny, whose performing persona was laughably frugal, actor Eddie Marr snarled at him, "Don't make a move—this is a stickup. Now, come on: Your money or your life." Benny didn't respond. The "robber" said, "Look, bud—I said your money or your life!" Whereupon Benny shot back, "I'm thinking it over!"

Confronted for the first time in history with a constant stream of medical innovations that are marvelously effective but tend to be very expensive, our legislative representatives—in particular, the Blue Dog Democrats—would do well to stop "thinking it over" and to commit themselves to action that will preserve the ability of Americans to choose life over money.

No where in the worlds does quality and innovation increase as spending on a particular product or service decreases.

And I ask the age old question again:

If spending 17% of our GDP on health care is sinking our country, what on earth will spending over 40% of our GDP on government do?

 

[Vast LWC]

Ahh, but interestingly enough, he decided that Canada's health care system was inferior after he went on a fact finding trip where:

Which means, they are not saying thier health care is inferior to the US...
They are saying their health care is inferior to even more socialized nations.

In fact, in that article, Doig is actually backing up Mr Obama's point that private health care has a place in a country with a public system, as evidenced here:

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said

You are misreading the article. Whether the epiphany occurred in the EU or on the road to Damascus, the operative part of the sentence was " a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred."

Which has nothing to do with public or private health care. There are just as many, if not more, "bureaucrats" in between you and your doctors in private health care than in public health care. That's why administrative costs for private health care are higher, not lower.

Get it: less based on bureaucrat commissions, which is the basis of ObamaCare.

The point of the multitude of posts over the last several days has been that the Obama plan is intended to institute a 'public option' that many of us see as a wolf in sheeps clothing,designed to squeeze out public plans.

If you like, I'll go over the surreptitious steps that the Chicago cabal had in mind.

You'll go over the rightie interpretation of what they think the Obama administration had in mind. Or are you claiming some ability in clairvoyance perhaps?

But, if the news is to be believed, the point is moot, as the administration and its allies claim that this will no longer be in the bill.

We shall see. It will either happen now, or ten years down the line anyway, when average costs for a family of four will be over $36,000, which is completely unsupportable.

Therefore, showing weaknesses in plans such as Canada's may be obviated.

One hopes.

 

[elvis]

I don't watch fox news, fuckface.

I'll call BS on this one. Anyone who makes an inaccurate, hyperbolic statement like the one you made above is almost sure to be either a FoxNews viewer, or a Rush Limbaugh listener.

then I call you a fuckface, too. because I don't watch fox or listen to Limbaugh, asshole.

 

[elvis]

I don't watch fox news, fuckface.

I'll call BS on this one. Anyone who makes an inaccurate, hyperbolic statement like the one you made above is almost sure to be either a FoxNews viewer, or a Rush Limbaugh listener.

and another thing, what is it about you Obamabots thinking anyone who doesn't worship your Ossiah MUST worship limpbitch?

 

[Vast LWC]

"The U.S., then, seems to be paying far more to insure a smaller share of its population—to be paying more for less.
There are several flaws in this reasoning, first and foremost its claim that a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. America’s health-care sector is larger partly because, unlike Canada’s, it includes for-profit corporations. Consider the benefit: companies invest billions each year developing innovative, life-saving drugs and devices. Are these expenses really something to lament? Similarly, is it a disadvantage that the U.S. has 11 percent more practicing doctors per capita than Canada? Or 15 percent more nurses? Is it a problem that the United States has almost four times as many MRI scanners per capita as Canada does, or that we preventively test more of our population for common cancers? Hardly. The fact that America’s health-care system is larger, more advanced, and better staffed than a system with rationed care is an advantage. To pretend otherwise is just a tactic to make the reform pill easier to swallow."
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

So, let's see if I have this right. The US is spending 100% more, per patient, on health care than Canada.

But they only have 11 percent more doctors, and 15 percent more nurses?

And in addition, on the whole, Canadians are MORE healthy than Americans, not less?

Seems like the Canadians are definitely doinig better to me...

 

[elvis]

"The U.S., then, seems to be paying far more to insure a smaller share of its population—to be paying more for less.
There are several flaws in this reasoning, first and foremost its claim that a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. America’s health-care sector is larger partly because, unlike Canada’s, it includes for-profit corporations. Consider the benefit: companies invest billions each year developing innovative, life-saving drugs and devices. Are these expenses really something to lament? Similarly, is it a disadvantage that the U.S. has 11 percent more practicing doctors per capita than Canada? Or 15 percent more nurses? Is it a problem that the United States has almost four times as many MRI scanners per capita as Canada does, or that we preventively test more of our population for common cancers? Hardly. The fact that America’s health-care system is larger, more advanced, and better staffed than a system with rationed care is an advantage. To pretend otherwise is just a tactic to make the reform pill easier to swallow."
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

So, let's see if I have this right. The US is spending 100% more, per patient, on health care than Canada.

But they only have 11 percent more doctors, and 15 percent more nurses?

And in addition, on the whole, Canadians are MORE healthy than Americans, not less?

Seems like the Canadians are definitely doinig better to me...

then move there, asshole.

 

[Vast LWC]

I don't watch fox news, fuckface.

I'll call BS on this one. Anyone who makes an inaccurate, hyperbolic statement like the one you made above is almost sure to be either a FoxNews viewer, or a Rush Limbaugh listener.

then I call you a fuckface, too. because I don't watch fox or listen to Limbaugh, asshole.

Fuckface? That is original I guess, but by calling people "obamabots" you further implicate yourself.

 

[elvis]

I'll call BS on this one. Anyone who makes an inaccurate, hyperbolic statement like the one you made above is almost sure to be either a FoxNews viewer, or a Rush Limbaugh listener.

then I call you a fuckface, too. because I don't watch fox or listen to Limbaugh, asshole.

Fuckface? That is original I guess, but by calling people "obamabots" you further implicate yourself.

you mean the way you did about fox and limpbitch?

 

[Vast LWC]

"The U.S., then, seems to be paying far more to insure a smaller share of its population—to be paying more for less.
There are several flaws in this reasoning, first and foremost its claim that a dollar spent is a dollar wasted. America’s health-care sector is larger partly because, unlike Canada’s, it includes for-profit corporations. Consider the benefit: companies invest billions each year developing innovative, life-saving drugs and devices. Are these expenses really something to lament? Similarly, is it a disadvantage that the U.S. has 11 percent more practicing doctors per capita than Canada? Or 15 percent more nurses? Is it a problem that the United States has almost four times as many MRI scanners per capita as Canada does, or that we preventively test more of our population for common cancers? Hardly. The fact that America’s health-care system is larger, more advanced, and better staffed than a system with rationed care is an advantage. To pretend otherwise is just a tactic to make the reform pill easier to swallow."
Bigger Is Healthier by David Gratzer, City Journal 22 July 2009

So, let's see if I have this right. The US is spending 100% more, per patient, on health care than Canada.

But they only have 11 percent more doctors, and 15 percent more nurses?

And in addition, on the whole, Canadians are MORE healthy than Americans, not less?

Seems like the Canadians are definitely doinig better to me...

then move there, asshole.

No thanks, I'd rather stick around here and make sure 'tards like you don't run the country into the ground.

Nice attempt at debate, by the way. "Fuckface" and "Asshole" are very effective retorts to my point, aren't they?

 

[elvis]

So, let's see if I have this right. The US is spending 100% more, per patient, on health care than Canada.

But they only have 11 percent more doctors, and 15 percent more nurses?

And in addition, on the whole, Canadians are MORE healthy than Americans, not less?

Seems like the Canadians are definitely doinig better to me...

then move there, asshole.

No thanks, I'd rather stick around here and make sure 'tards like you don't run the country into the ground.

Nice attempt at debate, by the way. "Fuckface" and "Asshole" are very effective retorts to my point, aren't they?

jackasses like you who think anyone who won't worship the ossiah must be a fox viewer/limpbitch watcher aren't worth debating. you simple-minded robot.

 

[Vast LWC]

then I call you a fuckface, too. because I don't watch fox or listen to Limbaugh, asshole.

Fuckface? That is original I guess, but by calling people "obamabots" you further implicate yourself.

you mean the way you did about fox and limpbitch?

Have I claimed not to watch a particular media source? I hate them all, but I keep an ear to them all.

As much as I can't stand most of their bullshit, it's better to know what's being spouted than not.

 

[Maple]

OVERHAULING HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM TOPS AGENDA AT ANNUAL MEETING OF CANADA'S
DOCTORS

By Jennifer Graham 3 days ago:


SASKATOON- The incoming president of the Canadian Medical Association says this country's health-care system is sick and doctors need to develop a plan to cure it.

Dr. Anne Doig says patients are getting less than optimal care and she adds that physicians from across the country - who will gather in Saskatoon on Sunday for their annual meeting - recognize that changes must be made.

"We all agree that the system is imploding, we all agree that things are more precarious than perhaps Canadians realize," Doing said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"We know that there must be change," she said. "We're all running flat out, we're all just trying to stay ahead of the immediate day-to-day demands."

The pitch for change at the conference is to start with a presentation from Dr. Robert Ouellet, the current president of the CMA, who has said there's a critical need to make Canada's health-care system patient-centred. He will present details from his fact-finding trip to Europe in January, where he met with health groups in England, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands and France.

His thoughts on the issue are already clear. Ouellet has been saying since his return that "a health-care revolution has passed us by," that it's possible to make wait lists disappear while maintaining universal coverage and "that competition should be welcomed, not feared."

In other words, Ouellet believes there could be a role for private health-care delivery within the public system.

He has also said the Canadian system could be restructured to focus on patients if hospitals and other health-care institutions received funding based on the patients they treat, instead of an annual, lump-sum budget. This "activity-based funding" would be an incentive to provide more efficient care, he has said.

Doig says she doesn't know what a proposed "blueprint" toward patient-centred care might look like when the meeting wraps up Wednesday. She'd like to emerge with clear directions about where the association should focus efforts to direct change over the next few years. She also wants to see short-term, medium-term and long-term goals laid out.

"A short-term achievable goal would be to accelerate the process of getting electronic medical records into physicians' offices," she said. "That's one I think ought to be a priority and ought to be achievable."

A long-term goal would be getting health systems "talking to each other," so information can be quickly shared to help patients.

Doig, who has had a full-time family practice in Saskatoon for 30 years, acknowledges that when physicians have talked about changing the health-care system in the past, they've been accused of wanting an American-style structure. She insists that's not the case.

"It's not about choosing between an American system or a Canadian system," said Doig. "The whole thing is about looking at what other people do."

"That's called looking at the evidence, looking at how care is delivered and how care is paid for all around us (and) then saying 'Well, OK, that's good information. How do we make all of that work in the Canadian context? What do the Canadian people want?' "

Doig says there are some "very good things" about Canada's health-care system, but she points out that many people have stories about times when things didn't go well for them or their family.

"(Canadians) have to understand that the system that we have right now - if it keeps on going without change - is not sustainable," said Doig.

"They have to look at the evidence that's being presented and will be presented at (the meeting) and realize what Canada's doctors are trying to tell you, that you can get better care than what you're getting and we all have to participate in the discussion around how do we do that and of course how do we pay for it."

Copyright © 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Related articles
Doctor delegates debate merits of European-style health care
Vancouver Sun - 1 hour ago
Leave universal health care alone
Toronto Star - 10 hours


Hmmmmm and Obama modeled his health care after this plan.

 

[Vast LWC]

then move there, asshole.

No thanks, I'd rather stick around here and make sure 'tards like you don't run the country into the ground.

Nice attempt at debate, by the way. "Fuckface" and "Asshole" are very effective retorts to my point, aren't they?

jackasses like you who think anyone who won't worship the ossiah must be a fox viewer/limpbitch watcher aren't worth debating. you simple-minded robot.

Whatever pal, you're not worth the short amount time it takes to make you look foolish.

 

[elvis]

Fuckface? That is original I guess, but by calling people "obamabots" you further implicate yourself.

you mean the way you did about fox and limpbitch?

Have I claimed not to watch a particular media source? I hate them all, but I keep an ear to them all.

As much as I can't stand most of their bullshit, it's better to know what's being spouted than not.

no, dipshit. I'm talking about your simple minded accusations about others.

 

[elvis]

No thanks, I'd rather stick around here and make sure 'tards like you don't run the country into the ground.

Nice attempt at debate, by the way. "Fuckface" and "Asshole" are very effective retorts to my point, aren't they?

jackasses like you who think anyone who won't worship the ossiah must be a fox viewer/limpbitch watcher aren't worth debating. you simple-minded robot.

Whatever pal, you're not worth the short amount time it takes to make you look foolish.

Riight. because anyone who won't bow down to your Ossiah is foolish, right?

 

[Vast LWC]

OVERHAULING HEALTH-CARE SYSTEM TOPS AGENDA AT ANNUAL MEETING OF CANADA'S DOCTORS

Not for nothing, but PChic just posted that article on the last page.

I mean hey, you can repost it, but as we just debated it back a forth for a while, it seems a little repetitive...

Perhaps you missed it due to the meaningless back and forth Elvis and I have been having...

I apologize for being drawn in to foolishness and obscuring the intelligent debate.

 

[Vast LWC]

jackasses like you who think anyone who won't worship the ossiah must be a fox viewer/limpbitch watcher aren't worth debating. you simple-minded robot.

Whatever pal, you're not worth the short amount time it takes to make you look foolish.

Riight. because anyone who won't bow down to your Ossiah is foolish, right?

No, but anyone who calls people "Fuckface", "Jackass" and "Asshole" in the course of a debate is definitely foolish.

Fool.