Health Insurance, Nuclear Weapons Selected as Final Choices for 2026-27 National Policy Debate Topic

“Health Insurance” and “Nuclear Weapons” have been chosen as the final two choices for the 2026-27 National Policy Debate Topics.

As a part of the process to determine next year’s national debate topic, the NFHS tabulated ballots from 31 states and four partner organizations, including the National Speech and Debate Association, the National Debate Coaches Association, the National Association for Urban Debate Leagues, and the National Catholic Forensic League. This step, which narrows five proposed topics to the final two, required organizations to rank those five potential topics using a scale of one to five, with “one” being the preferred topic and “five” being least desirable. 

“Health Insurance” and “Nuclear Weapons” received top votes, and now will be placed on a final ballot, which will be voted on by NFHS member state associations and partner organizations. On January 10, 2026, the NFHS will announce the preferred topic area and resolution, and the 2026-27 National High School Debate Topic and resolution will be posted on the speech and debate page of the NFHS website and sent to state associations and affiliate members.

The following states and partner organizations returned ballots: 

Within each potential debate topic area appears one resolution.  The resolutions within the two final topic areas are:

Health Insurance

Resolved: The United States federal government should establish national health insurance in the United States.

Nuclear Weapons

Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially reduce the size and/or restrict the roles of its nuclear weapons arsenal.

The following chart summarizes the balloting on the topic areas and their respective resolutions. Areas ranked 1-2-3-4-5 with low combined total indicative of top ranking.

Final Ranking Vote Tally

• 63 Health Insurance

• 93 Nuclear Weapons

• 104 Energy

• 113 Corporate Control

• 152 Carbon Pricing

See how we got to 5 topics

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