Discussion6 November 12th

In last discussion class, we thought about free medical care for citizen. This discussion team had 4 panelists and a chair.


First, each panelists introduced themselves and they said agree or disagree with the idea. Then, there were 2 supporters in panelists. One was Ms. Ume who is a homemaker and the other was Mr. Tomozou who is a clerk at a cigar store. In particular, Ms. Ume and her husband have no income so they live on pension. However, they have regular health problems so their medical bill is very expensive. Therefore, if medical care change into a free service, it would be good for them.

On the other hand, Ms. Miyu who has a family disagreed with the idea. The reason why she did that she rarely goes to hospital so it is needless system for her. Additionally, her family isn't rich so she didn't want to pay more tax for the system.

However, concerning the raising tax, Ms. Ume and Mr. Tomozou worried too. Ms. Ume and Mr. Tomozou are not rich people so they want to get free medical care without raising tax. Then, the chair asked them that how to get money for free medical care.


Ms. Ume's idea that smoking and drinking is bad for the health so alcohol and cigarette taxes should increase for the system. However, of course, Mr. Tomozou disagreed with her idea and he insisted that we should raise only consumption tax. Then, Ms. Miyu said raising consumption tax is bad for not rich people like her. They argued with each other about what kind of tax we should increase so the chair suggested raising income tax.

Then, Ms. kyoko opposed the idea. Until this point, she said it is not her problem because her husband has a lot of money. However, if we change income tax, Ms.Kyoko would have to pay more money so she thought it was unfair for her.

While they talking about tax, they got off the subject and started talking about object person who can receive free medical care. Therefore, I didn't understand why raising income and consumption taxes was their consensus. So, I got my own thought. In my opinion, if we impose pleasure tax, it would be fair for all people. The reason why I thought that, like drinking, watching movies are not indispensability for our lives so we can pay tax about it. However, it is unhappy to live for people if we impose a tax on all pleasure so we need to limit the extent, I think.

Last, I think both panelists and audience should be careful to keep our discussion topic.