Dr. Schilling: Those who advocate replacing my country' s private health insurance system with. nationalized health insurance because of the rising costs of medical care fail to consider the high human costs that consumers pay in countries with nationalized insurance: access to high-technology medicine is restricted. Kidney transplants and open-heart surgery-familiar life-saving procedures are rationed. People are denied their right to treatments they want and need. Dr. Laforte: Your country' s reliance on private health insurance denies access even to basic, conventional medicine to the many people who cannot afford adequate health coverage. With nationalized insurance, rich and poor have equal access to life-saving medical procedures, and people' s right to decent medical treatment regardless of income is not violated.
In responding to Dr. Schilling, Dr. Laforte employs the argumentative strategy of showing that the force of Dr. Schilling's criticism depends on construing the key notion of access in a particular limited way.