Except that you can’t show that UHC is responsible for less death and longer lifespans, and determining whether it’s cheaper involves subjectively determining which costs to count.
I don’t have a dog in this fight, but in the context of this thread, I have to agree that “UHC is better” is an opinion. It is supported by a lot of facts, but it is still ultimately opinion because it is a value judgment of those facts. That said, stating that “‘UHC is better’ is an opinion” as a counter-argument is disingenuous and does nothing to actually attack the basis of that opinion.
For instance, imagine two people are arguing over whether blue or green is the better color. The pro-blue person can cite studies about how it’s more soothing therefore it’s a better color. Saying that it’s just his opinion doesn’t do anything to actually counter that argument. The appropriate response would be to potentially argue that soothingness isn’t the best metric, that the studies are flawed, to offer other studies that come to a different conclusion, or whatever.
As such, I would say that saying “UHC is better” is a fact is misrepresenting opinion as fact, but also saying “UHC is better” is an opinion, is utterly weightless as a counter-argument. Ironically, it seems like both sides of the argument in this case are engaged in exactly what the OP is pitting.
UHC is better isn’t a fact. That it has better results is the fact.
To expand on my last post since I suddenly have a few minutes:
I am taller than my mother. <-- Fact.
My height is better than my mother’s. <-- Opinion.
UHC is cheaper than what we do. <-- Fact.
UHC provides more care for less money. <-- Fact.
Countries with UHC have more healthy populations. <–Fact.
UHC is tyranny and Kenyan-Negrofication of American Red-Blood and Flag! <–Opinion.
Do you think that I’m saying “‘UHC is better’ is an opinion” as an argument against UHC? Because I’m not.
“UHC produces result X, while alternative B produces result Y” is a fact, if it’s verifiably true. “Result X is better than result Y” is, as stated, an opinion, unless you give an objective definition of what you mean by “better.”
ETA: This was posted before I read Lobohan’s expansion.
Is it a fact or opinion that this UHC debate is ruining this thread? 
Better in this case would mean more of what you’re looking for.
Neosporin retards bacteria growth better than a clump of dogshit. ← Fact
Incorporated into the comment is the idea that you want the superior outcome, isn’t it? If the conversation is about UHC / American system, you probably want to measure how each system does what it’s designed to do, right?
ETA: This is what I wrote before I read Thudlow Boink’s edit. 
I blame myself.
But thankfully, I’m okay with that.
At one point in time, the vast majority of people who had the expertise agreed that the sun orbited the earth. Did that make it a fact? At one point in time the vast majority of people who had the expertise agreed that god created the world in 7 days. Does that make it a fact? In the realm of physics, for a long time the majority of people who had the expertise agreed that we lived in a deterministic universe. Did that make it a fact? Or how about the steady state universe? That was such a well known ‘fact’ that Einstein put in a fudge factor called the cosmological constant to make his theory fit the facts. Of course that well known fact was wrong and Einstein called the cosmological constant the biggest blunder he ever made.
Consensus != fact.
Slee
It isn’t a fact that man made Global Warming is happening. It is a fact that the consensus of trained climate scientists agree that it is.
A sane person should accept the consensus of modern scientists.
No. Although it wasn’t scientific inquiry that made people think that, it was uneducated intuition. If anything this shows that uneducated intuition is worthless. Which is why conservatives are so often wrong. (Opinion)
Those people didn’t have expertise.
The entire post you’ve made is because you misunderstood what I was saying, so I’ll stop line item replying here.
As I said, the *fact *is that there is a consensus. Your argument is otherwise wrong, because science self corrects. The people who thought the world was created in six days or that it was the center of the universe didn’t use the methods of science, they just claimed authority, they didn’t earn it.
Lobo, what takes you from “average liberal douche dumbass” to “pitiable, sad little man” is that you have absolutely no ability to make a policy argument for a proposition you support. Instead, you frame the debate as you on the side of facts, which means that others are denying or ignoring them.
I’ll leave it to the peanut gallery to determine which of us is correct.
You’re a dishonest person. You don’t care if you’re actually right, the perception that you’re right is good enough for you.
I base my opinions on facts, you base them on the childish fantasy of libertarianism.
Hear it sounds like you think it’s OK to look behind a consensus and see how and why the consensus developed. But when someone does that with the AGW consensus you get all up in arms. And then you say I’m the one clinging to an ideology.
The consensus is the vast majority of working climate scientists. It sin’t a cabal. It isn’t a star-chamber. It isn’t a group of communists.
If you take every single working climate scientist on Earth and ask them if humans are having an effect on Global Warming, the vast, vast majority of them will agree.
Many of the handful that disagree will happen to work for energy companies. Funny, that.
You want to side with the fringe group because they are telling you what you want to hear.
You aren’t trying to elevate the conversation, RR. You believe that saying something is an opinion means it can be ignored. You’ve stated such in the past.
Global warming is a fact. There are measurements that show that the average temperature has increased. That’s what global warming means. That’s a fact. The only thing in contention is what caused it. Is it a continuing trend, or will it self correct? OR do we humans need to do something about it? Heck, did we cause it?
The affirmative answers to those questions are opinions. But they are opinions by experts that have backed them up with facts. So their opinion, as much as you hate to say it, is worth more than yours. And this obviously pisses you off, or you wouldn’t hijack a thread like a fucking troll.
All those experts came to consensus because they were working from the same facts.
Nobody gets it. :smack: While I agree with the sentiment here completely, you missed the OP by a bit…
The claim that global warming is a continuing, man-made trend is a statement of fact. That is, it claims an objective, true-or-false statement that does not depend on the perspective of the viewer. The jury is out on its nature of true or false, but that does not make it opinion.
If you’re saying that opinion must refer to a subjective personal preference, and never to something that can be objectively true or false, correct or incorrect—well, that doesn’t agree with the way the word is often used. We sometimes speak of a professional giving his expert opinion, or of going to another doctor for a second opinion.
I looked up the word “opinion”, and the definitions I found do allow the word “opinion” to be used for beliefs about things which are in reality either true or false (“a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty”).
Yeah, it’s interesting. I’m sure this is all well-described in some philosophy textbook somewhere–perhaps a philosopher will come along.
I think it makes some sense to call “a statement the truth value of which can be determined objectively” a factual statement or statement of fact, but when it is not currently possible to determine the statementls truth value, I think BigTard has it right that any statement about its truth value is an opinion.
Also, the example you chose is a little problematic in that it introduces the element of causation. That’s a sticky wickeÞ, as any lawyer will tell you. Just about anything is the cause of anything else if you define cause broadly enough–what people are generally interested in is referred to in the law as the proximate cause, which is a matter of jedgment.