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"Not dying from an easily treated disease because a person cannot afford health insurance is not a right." I don't think even the Nation would phrase things in this manner if it were asked to list criticisms its opponents have to universal health care, hence I edited this. Furthermore, is it really appropriate to have unsourced rebuttals to the criticisms?
There are some serious NPOV problems with this section, but I'll leave it to a more experienced Wikipedian to fix it.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tin Man ( talk • contribs) 15:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC).
The lists have some serious problems, and should probably just be summary sections that point to a full article on the topic. For example, it is misleading to state "health care is a right" without explanation, and it is also embarrassing because the artics] 18:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not true that SP is a form of UHC. Contray to what many people think, including many single-payer advocates, the two are distinct concepts. Single-payer is a economic model for financing health care. UHC is a concept that all people are guaranteed access to needed medical care; that there is universal coverage, such as under a private and/or public health insurance system. That's it. Single-payer is, in it's literal meaning--which is what's most relevant--simply an economic model for financing medical services delivered to patients. Single-payer also denotes--for nearly all of its advocates--a way of setting up a fee negotiation structure between the payer and providers (this can be referenced by leading SP advocacy organizations such as Physicians for a National Health Program). The payer of single-payer can be either a private or public payer. Single-payer does not imply UHC; they address distinct concepts; respectively, a financing model and access model. Some of the confusion comes from that fact that virtually all single-payer systems also utilize universal coverage, and most single-payer advocates--in the US and elsewhere, also advocate for universal coverage. But they are distinct. UHC is not a type of single-payer, and single-payer is not a type of UHC. I wrote a fair amount of the entry for single-payer and addressed these issues in a slightly more expanded manner there. Single-payer advocates also call for a number of other health system elements, but those, too, are not literally "single-payer." I'm new to this, so I have more to comment about in the article--not having made any edits yet, most saliently the misstatements regarding UHC and socialism and the inapt inclusion of this entry in the Socialism category. If anything is to be done, rather than repeating the info from other entries, like single-payer, or merging, is to hyperlink to the more expanded commentary elsewhere and to strip it out of here, allowing the focus on UHC itself, and secondarily referring to the related issues such as financing mechanisms. ---- my sigg isn't showing up, so by JackWikiSTP
Leads to make this a better site:
Two important details to research on this topic.
The top two systems Italy and France, (Canada way back, because it is controlled by the Doctors Union, and most services are privately supplied, with no quality control.)
France. You pay the doctor first, and then the government re-imburses you, so that you are the audit system.
Italy. Doctors receive a per capita annual salary, so the system, the payment system rewards health. [1]
Canadian system rewards visits.
I will try to do the research...asap...
-- Caesar J. B. Squitti : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 00:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
These are arguments in favor of public universal health care, to be added, but a reference is needed
User:Caesarjbsquitti's edit of the 24th January [1] leaves the first paragraph making no sense:
How can four countries rank in the top three in the world? (And the top three for what?)
As a separate matter (which long predates that edit), I'm not sure it's NPOV to use the loaded term "socialized medicine" without qualification in the first paragraph (at least in the US, it's a term used primarily by opponents of such a system, as noted on the Socialized medicine page). The Wednesday Island 14:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
It has a pro big buisness insurance company slant as if written primarily by the sellers of Health Insurance and without much consideration towards the 40million plus people in the United States who have no more access to health care above what they might get in an impoverished country like Mexico. The article needs to defend the rights of all citizens to Health Care, rather than having a bias and implying that its as good for the rich in a country to have superior health care than for most people to have access to it. This writer feels it would be best for modernized countries to make laws that make it illegal for companies to make money off the misery, pain and suffering of others. Companies who often refuse to pay claims as things are. This article needs a rewrite or side article relating what it feels like to be uninsured person in a rich country. -- merlinus 21:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
It really boggles my mind to see how someone can sit on a high horse and act like 41+ MILLION PEOPLE don't matter because they fall into a "percentage" of only 14+ percent so therefore, THEY DON'T MATTER, SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? <Let the bleeding hearts pay for them> This statement alone makes me sick. If our country would have used this same formula when electing a president, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now. Who will ever know if it could be better but it's a certain, it couldn't possibly be worse. Someone needs to stop and think about individuals instead of percentages. If we used HALF of the money we've spent on this revenge "war" on health care, that 41 million people could have health care. Why are the citizens of Iraq more important than the citizens of The USA? Oh, right, the oil. I forgot. I must be a bleeding heart. My concerns are more for my fellow man than a barrel of oil. And don't forget about those FAT contracts Halliburton gets out of the deal for rebuilding everything we spent ALL of our Defense Funds BLOWING UP ! < shock and awe > I'm definitely in shock and in awe of the "percentage" of people who support this tactic of greed. But don't forget, KARMA is a MOFO!!! Big Johnson By the way, when I say "revenge war" I'm NOT refering to 9/11 because that would be a war against Osama Binladen. This war is just revenge for the first president Bush against Sadam Hussein and now that he's dead, the present president Bush doesn't know WHAT to do from this point forward so all he can do now is attack his own country with propaganda. Again, KARMA is going to be rough on him.
My family and I are part of the 41 million without healthcare. My mom, who is recently divorced and raising my two sisters on her own, cannot afford the monthly cost of healthcare for the entire family. Yesterday night, my youngest sister took too much of her medicine because she didn't know any better. While we sat on the phone with poison control, we all worried about the costs of taking her to the emergency room - without health insurance, the cost would be astronomical. Fortunately, it did not come down to that, but even after that emergency, we still know that we cannot afford the monthly cost of health insurance for the entire family, unless we wanted to give up our electricity, something we struggle to pay every month. If there were some form of universal health care, it would be far easier for us, but there is not, so we continue to live without healthcare and hope that an emergency does not arise. (May 14, 2007)
Nbauman, I'm aware of the limitations of COBRA. I also know if you transfer from COBRA to a Blue Cross plan, your preexisting conditions CANNOT be held against you if you do not let there be any lapse in coverage from COBRA to Blue Cross.
Since you're so interested in Canada, a new article in City Journal would seem to shred some of your notions about Canadian healthcare. Here is the intro graph: "Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada."
The link is http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html
Just as Canadians, fed up with the severe problems of their system, are moving toward a market solution, unschooled, ignorant, or leftwing Americans move toward socialism.
Read the article and see if it makes a dent. Simplemines 09:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems to be that single payer and Universal health care are very seperate things and should not be merge.
It is posible to have a Single payer system that is not universal and it is possible to have a Universal system that has multiple payers.
I think that merging these two topics whould only make it harder to seperate the two different ideas and might make it harder for readers to tell the difference between these two ideas. 72.228.90.129 19:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I have added a neutrality icon to this page - the section on universal coverage in the United States cites examples in other countries that are not backed up with sources, true examples or figures. I also added links to tables dealing with life expectancy and infannt mortality rates among nations, as published by the CIA World Factbook online, found here. Dmodlin71 11:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, the statements pertaining to states enforcing monopolies on state-funded healthcare services should be deleted, unless they can be backed up with verifiable references. Dmodlin71 11:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Does anybody have a source for a definition of "Universal health care"? As far as I could tell, the source cited, Massachusetts Nursing Association. "Single Payer Health Care: A Nurses Guide to Single Payer Reform.", does not have a definition. Nbauman 20:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
For a definition of Universal health Care please visit http://www.euro.who.int/observatory/Glossary/TopPage?phrase=U
which states in summary, that Universal Health Insurance provides health care coverage to the entire population (100%)
"Universal Health Insurance Core definition: A national plan providing health insurance or services to all citizens, or to all residents. Source: Getzen, 1997 Example/s: Ninety-five percent of the population was covered in 1997, but it was not until a law was passed in 1999 providing universal health insurance that the entire population was covered. "
204.174.219.3 19:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I erased the the part that stipulated a requirement to pay. Although the definition cited above refers to Universal health Insurance and not care, I think it is more than obvious that the concept of universal coverage requires everyone to be covered and not everyone to pay. Of course, universal coverage is often implemented with an obligation to insure (and pay) for those who can, but for universal coverage inability to pay cannot be a reason for exclusion. Jonas78 23:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
My objection to the definition is that it doesn't distinguish between the universal right to be treated for necessary healthcare and a system that provides universal a universal system of paying for healthcare that is a system, rather than a patchwork of mandates that apply to doctors, hospitals, and so on, to shift the costs of required care to them so they will force the government and charities to pay for required coverage.
In the US, doctors and hospitals are required to provide all necessary care to preserve life regardess of ability to pay. And public hospitals are required to treat all patients who show up and need care. So, while the US doesn't have a system of universal healthcare payment, it does have a requirement for universal healthcare if you can get through the rationing that not having the means to pay erect. Mulp 18:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
This article is really bad right now. It provides no good information, has many unsourced and POV statements, and it glances over the topic in favor of playing up emotions. It needs to have less emotion and more information. As it stands, it reads like something off a short website instead of an encyclopedic article. Topics that should be included could include things like how countries implement care, what restrictions there are, and possibly political or social response to the topic if done so in a neutral manner that documents support and dissent. It should also not be presented as a list of opinions as the last two sections are, because they run into the same problem of merely glancing at the topic and offering no information beyond talking points. Rebochan 13:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I began work to correct this mess but gave up in favor of commenting here. I comment not only as a dual citizen of the USA and Canada [more than 30 years lived in each nation] but also as a provider of healthcare services in hospitals on BOTH sides of the border.
My attention to the need for HEALTHCARE REFORM began back in 1991 with the fascinating Walter Cronkite TV Documentary entitled "Borderline Medicine". Walter followed 2 cases of normal pregnancy, 2 of cancer, and 2 of cardiac bypass surgery, one on each side of the border. The subsequent effect upon American cries for UHC surpassed Cronkite's 1968 aposty concerning the winabiity of the Vietnam War, a statement that convinced LBJ not to run again. Most advocacy for UHC in the USA is tracable back to Walter's nifty film.
The worst mess on the article page is the misunderstanding that Canada has national UHC. It does not. Canada is not a republic. It is a federation of ten provinces. Each province has its own government-regulated HC insurance plan. Services covered in Manitoba [which has universal state-operated automobile insurance!] are not the same as services covered in Newfoundland, and so forth. The federal government now provides only Guidelines for the provincial systems. Two decades ago it had purse string power over them by Federal Grants, but those days are now over.
Second, Americans presume that UHC in Canada was implemented under the reign of Left Wing governments. This holds true ONLY for the system implemented in Saskatchewan back in 1949 -and man is THAT a story to be told some day in Wikipedia! But it was the late 50s to early 60s federal CONSERVATIVES that brought UHC from sea to sea. But not a single, national scheme, such as Britain has.
Universal Health care is barely understood by persons who already have it, and dreadfully misunderstood by those who don't have it but either WANT IT or DON'T WANT IT. The former group tend to idealize UHC irationally and misunderstand what can actually be achieved. The latter group defame UHC irationally and misunderstand that it has nothing to do with Karl Marx.
The name of the game is the label one succeeds in imposing upon the facts. Canada does not have a single-payer heathcare system. That term was never used in the lively debate before adopting this kind of healthcare delivery. Canadians did not WANT a nation where the rich would live and the poor would die. The ethical aim of UHC is to ameliorate the biological connection between health and wealth, also between health and social class or rank. The most impressive researcher into this human condition remains British professor of epidemiology and public health, Sir Michael Marmot. Dr. Marmot was also the 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Look him up on the I'net.
Across six decades, a conclusion I have reached is as follows. The system used by a nation or society to distribute health care among its members is that society's answer to the question: Why have a society in the first place? At bottom, different HC delivery systems provide varying degrees of opportunity not to individuals, but to DNA units in our H. sapien gene pool.
Trylon 04:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Good points, Trylon. If you write you comments up, get them published even as an op ed, then I or someone can cite it. As the article is covering a term of art in political framing, I don't think any article can be anything but a hash. I think the article should be reduced significantly to focus on the political use of the political slogans, like "Universal Healthcare" because the words are intentionally vague and shifting meanings. Mulp 19:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Apart from the list of countries with UHC, this article bearly mentions any actual UHC systems.
Also, the primary focus of the article should not be a debate on the *worth* of UHC, taking place in a country that doesnt have it. surely the article should focus on UHC as it actually exists in countries where it actually exits?! The article should define what is it, the historical development of the concept and historical attempts at implementing it, describe where and how it is implemented in specific terms in the contempory context, philosophical underpinnings, etc, etc. There is lots that could be discussed other than its good, no its evil, ad infinitum. After that is done then you could have a section on particular pros and cons, etc. But as usual on wikipedia, you come to find out dome iformation and yo just get an argument. aussietiger 05:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
It's a false statement to claim that medical insurance is subject to market failure in an article about Universal Health Care. Health care is the market failure, single payer and hybrid models are responses to that market failure. Medical insurance is consumption smoothing. Milton Friedman opening and often asserted that one of the biggest issues with the current system in the US is that without medical insurance and without access to medical care is synonymous. Medical insurance is subject to adverse selection, medical care isn't. When you're sick, you want medical care. Access to medical care likewise is something everyone wants. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DJFLuFFKiNS ( talk • contribs) 12:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC).
This section needs to be reworked by someone with access to Economic literature and not educated guessing. As an example, there are four standard market failures put forward in relation to the workings of private health care markets (Following Arrow: externalities, returns to scale, supply-side restrictions and asymetric information (-> adverse selection, moral hazard). They cause ressources in health care to be allocated inefficiently. Thats is the rationale for state intervention and regulation. Universal health care addresses these issues, but it does not magically solve them, it produces problems of its own. Thats why most European countries actually have neither socialized medicine nor private health care markets, but in very different ways have tried to achieve "quasi-markets"... A good overview is given by Ch.17: Healthcare, in Connolly and Munro, Economics of the Public Sector, 1999. I am not a native English speaker, so I will abstain from making any major edits. Jonas78 00:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there a userbox to indicate a user's support for universal health care? Wooyi Talk, Editor review 04:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I know the text included the woolly phrase '....are among many countries that have various types of universal health care systems.', but the map actually shows more than are listed. Why are other countries, notably the PRC, not listed? If it is because no reference can be found, why is it still on the map? Is it OK to have something on an image without references, but not OK to have text without references?
Davidmaxwaterman
05:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a good page, mainly because it's got anything on it at all. I've made changes to the structure, however, to simplify it. Here are the main ones:
Can I also have thoughts on whether the arguments for/against should be slashed a bit, possibly removed? It's pretty mundane when the first "argument" for health care is "health care is a right" and the first argument against health care is "health care is not a right". Arguments usually require the word "because", and I'm afraid it rather sounds like something you might see on Fox news at the moment. There is also a distinct lack of facts, and the opinions of right wing think tanks, like the Cato Institute certainly don't count. It's also a "debate" so far as I know, that only exists in the United States, so I'm not sure how relevant it is. As I say, what does everyone think? Wik idea 08:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I've been looking at all the pages around these topics and I want to propose a merger between this page and the general Health care page. This one is better, but the other has a more appropriate name. This page is quite details, covers economics and politics, plus references to other countries. So I suggest the content there be added in the appropriate place here, and that Universal health care redirects to the Health care title. Wik idea 09:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
It would be helpful to know on which reference this map bases. Personally, I think the classification of some countries are disputable, especially for Switzerland. In my opinion Switzerland has universal health care at least with respect to the definition in the first sentence. Hermes Agathos 16:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, why is China colored on the map? The article gives no indication that China has a universal healthcare system.
The current format is strange and clearly an artefact of the merger/demerger. Could we perhaps simply go back to the last version before the merge, and then clean up? The 31 May version seemed pretty good.-- Gregalton 10:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
We now have most of this document already included in health care so we might as well erase that part from this article as we should follow DRY. I am in favor of keeping a seperate article for universal health care, but I also feel that much of the previous content is more appropriate for the Health care article. The lack of consensus is for a complete merge, but I think there is a consensus for the merger of much of the material. If there are any major objections to this then speak now.-- Jorfer 05:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm opposed to BalancedPolitics.org being listed as a neutral source on this issue (or any issue, for that matter). The name of the website gives the impression that it's neutral, but every article on the website is written by the same person, a person named Joe Messerli, who admits to having a conservative or libertarian perspective on most issues. Not surprisingly, most of the statements he makes about UHC are from that perspective. Many of the statements he makes are also unsupported opinions, such as: "There isn't a single government agency or division that runs efficiently", "Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness", "Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility", "Patients aren't likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.", and "Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care." In his explanations of these statements he cites no studies or statistics. Anyway, I think the link to this website should either be removed from the page or at the very least it should be labeled as a conservative/libertarian-leaning site, as opposed to a site that's "neutral". AnomyBC 02:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Kborer, I challenge the text in that graphic.
Where is your reliable source WP:RS to support your claim that "The availability of health care to a population is independent of the system used"?
Where is there a system with private financing, and universal care? Nbauman 19:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
These sections seem to very overly concerned with the US health system which ís not universal and therefore does not really have a place in this article. For example the term "single payer" is mentioned in both sections, but it is a term entirely born out of that current debate in the US.
Surely this article should describe what is meant by Universal Health Care and how it has been implemented in different places around the world. The rest of the article seems to do that very well but these two sections seem out of place with that. For this reason I am proposing the deletion of these two sections. I am sure the information in them can be obtained via the section on United States and related articles with about US health care such as Health care in the United States and single-payer health care.-- Tom 10:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I think an appropriate synonym for hybrid would be "everything else". And it is noteworthy that the article does not describe a single so called "hybrid system", it only describes the UK and Canada in some detail. And I don`t want to say its wrong, but stating that Germany moved from private insurance to a hybrid sytem kind of leaves me clueless. When? What is meant by that? What do you define as private insurance? What literally translates as the "private insurance system" in Germany is not a free market system. Jonas78 11:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
It is a basic differentiation between universal health care systems; anything more would overwhelm the article. Germany's system has basic universal health care coverage, but people can pick up any extra insurance from the private market. This is what is meant by a hybrid system.-- Jorfer 22:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
You say its a basic differentiation, but I would insist it is not a very clear one. In the single payer article you will find this definition for single payer: "An approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national (the Canadian System), state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company." by the National Medical Library. First, the term refers to the financing of health care. A logical opposition should then also be defined in terms of the financing of a system. I guess thats why 'multi-payer' system is often used as an opposition, and that would only say that those sytems have not a single centralized source of finance. What you refer to in the German case is more a Two-tier health care system, according to the article Canada is the only Western country not to have one, and its not an opposition to single-payer. When you insist that Germany is a hybrid system, because you can pick up extra insurance from the private market, I would ask you, isn´t that the case in Britain, too? Jonas78 01:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The two sections seem to imply that there are two different funding models for UHC. The two models being either "Single Payer" insurance or a "hybrid" system being some mix of "Single Payer" legislated compulsory insurance plus a "free market system" (paid for either by private medical insurance or pay-as-you-go private purchase). But all over the world, UHC has been been achieved with a hybrid model. There seem to me to be two main exceptions to the hybrid model. One being UK, which does not have a compulsory insurance scheme, and the other being Canada, which has legislated against private practice in areas where there is Single Payer coverage.
And here comes the confusions.
Many of the external links and references in this article discuss the US and Canadian models, partly one suspects because of the predominance of the English language and the strong cultural and historical links between the US on one side where the debate is raging, and the UK and Canada on the other. But the UK and Canadian sysyems are not representative systems and they are often misrepresented.
I have strayed a bit from the intended focus on the removal of the sections. But my main point is that if the sections on Single Payer and Hybrid (and potentially that horrid word "socialized medicine") are to remain in the article, they should be seen from a proper global perspective. Can I suggest we now discuss the issues I have raised and how they can be incorprated to improve the article-- Tom 09:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The lack of European examples trouble me. Either we should have more examples of implementations (probably with smaller sections for the UK and Canada) or we should drop the examples altogether. I prefer to keep them in myself. -- Tom 12:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Right, because nobody ever generalizes or sensationalizes the US health care system. Nobody ever says horror stories are typical. Uh huh.-- Rotten 04:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
And incidentally, while the polls I've seen do indicate that US voters want change (and it needs big changes indeed), they usually rate their own personal health care very high. And single payer initiatives failed in the two most pinko kooky moonbat states (my state of MA and Oregon). You've been swallowing too much "Guardian" bullshit, my friend. -- Rotten 04:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Theres no section about criticisms of this type of system, other than the pages as external links? I've been known to not notice things in front of me, so please dont flame me if I'm just not seeing the section lol.
Sicewa 02:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
There's a contradiction between two wikipedia articles I thought I'd point out.
In this article, it says "According to Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington in Seattle, Canadians do better by every health care measure. According to a World Health Organization report published in 2003, life expectancy at birth in Canada is 79.8 years, versus 77.3 in the U.S[19]."
However, the article "Canadian and American Health Care Systems Compared" states "n 2007, Gordon H. Guyatt et al. conducted a meta-analysis, or systematic review, of all studies that compared health outcomes for similar conditions in Canada and the U.S., in Open Medicine, an open-access peer-reviewed Canadian medical journal. They concluded, "Available studies suggest that health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent." Guyatt identified 38 studies addressing conditions including cancer, coronary artery disease, chronic medical illnesses and surgical procedures. Of 10 studies with the strongest statistical validity, 5 favoured Canada, 2 favoured the United States, and 3 were equivalent or mixed. Of 28 weaker studies, 9 favoured Canada, 3 favoured the United States, and 16 were equivalent or mixed. Overall, results for mortality favoured Canada with a 5% advantage, but the results were weak and varied. The only consistent pattern was that Canadian patients fared better in kidney failure"
I'm far from an expert of either the topic of health care or encyclopedia articles, so I leave it to the jury to decide.
-Dev —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.167.64 ( talk) 03:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
A topic that should be discussed.
No, just like a car, it has to be provided to you by someone with the expertise to build them. I would assert that one does not have a right to health care, but a right to the health they already possess. Although it is sad when someone can't afford medical care, why should I force someone else to pay for it? I'll offer up my own money for charity, but how do you justify forcing people to hand over their own money to pay for something they won't get? 70.134.57.120 03:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Bulgaria is indicated on the map as a country with no universal health care system, while the article says
which is right? 62.123.127.15 15:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Universal health care contrasts to the systems like health care in the United States or South Africa, though South Africa is one of the many countries attempting health care reform.[1]
The last part of this sentence is misleading and must be removed. South Africa is not "attempting health care reform." It has been a reality since 1995. -- Formeat 07:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
Image:Medicare-brand.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot 01:43, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Serbia also has a publicly funded health care system similar to other European countries. It is also not coloured on the map. -- 142.201.5.100 22:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I've made a few edits to clean up this article a bit - I'll explain each.
1 - I've started the article with a definition of Universal healthcare. Call me crazy, but it's probably good practice to begin an encyclopedia article with a definition of what you're talking about. Hack and slash away, but the keys of universal healthcare is government control and subsidy, (either of finances or finances and services) and guarenteed access. Can anyone show me a uhc system that doesn't have government subsidy?
2 - The opening paragraph in implementation is really weak - It says that universal health care is guaranteed access at a reasonable cost (that's part of the definition). Most countries implement uhc thru taxation and legislation (actually, all of them do, and again part of the definition). I've cut that paragraph in order to get the meat of this section, how uhc is implemented in different countries. Maybe we could say something about the history of implementation, how long they take, which types of countries attempt uhc, etc.
3 - in the US implementation section, changed a few things - the US is not the only country w/o uhc (as per the definition). A few other miscellenous things. There is some clean up necessary in the Canada section, but I'm no expert on the canadian system.
4 - Austrialia commentary is pretty unsourced. I'm really no expert on Australia, so I have to defer. Can someone help source that?
5 - The financial outcomes compared section is unsourced and misleading and it's time that that goes. There is no research cited showing a causative link between healthcare system and lifespan, infant mortality rate, etc. Look up causation vs. association. Don't you think that exercise, diet, and genetics have more to do with life span than who payed your doctor bill? A financial outcomes section should be how much healthcare services were received vs. how much those services cost and the quality of those services.
6 - The US debate at the end probably doesn't belongs in the 'Healthcare in the United States' article. I won't change it, but it should probably go. Nmcclana 06:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah - you cleaned up the intro, looks nicer than my first attempt. In the intro I wanted to define Universal healthcare. I think there are two basic types, 1 - where governments manage the finances, but private enterprise manage the services. 2 - where government does both. It's a moot point, but what's the NPOV description for each of those systems? And, yes, I deleted the into on implementation because I felt it was stated in the lead.
The lead needs some love - it is not a concise overview, nor does it provide context, or summarize points. I'll take a stab at trying to clean that up.
Also, I do disagree with one edit - in universal health care systems - Administrators & legislators DO determine coverage terms. Generally, the legislation only provides the framework, it doesn't define every drug in the formulary, how much each procedure will cost, etc. I'll pull up citations on that. Nmcclana 02:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
In the section on "Debate in the United States" it says that Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility. The cited article does indeed say that. But the argument put forward in the cited article says that some treatments may fall outside the universal system and that people may have to pay for treatments not covered by the national program. I do not see how that is "reduced flexibility". If the universal system does not cover certain treatment, then people will have the same choice they had before the introduction of the universal system. That is, they can insure themselves for the potential need for such treatments or they can pay for the treatment out of pocket. It does not look inflexible to me. -- Tom ( talk) 13:08, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Except if you're in Canada where you can't get treatment outside of the state run system. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 15:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. But Canada is quite an exception in this regard and it is not per se a reason for saying UHC reduces patient flexibilty.-- Tom ( talk) 18:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Rightly or wrongly, we have a section called Debate in the US. At the moment this is subbed with "arguments of proponents" and "arguments of opponents".
IMHO an argument is based on facts and logic. Is it right to include arguments that are not supported by objective facts and logic? I see many arguments based on prejudices rather than facts and a lot of false logic. For instance, it is claimed that government is always less efficient than the private sector and that government involvement in health would therefore be inefficient. But where is the evidence that government is always inefficient? It seems to me to be a prejudicial claim. And citations based on one event are extrapolated to all potential futures quite unfairly. Because at one time there were detected failings in privacy maintenance of Medicare records, ergo, it is claimed UHC in the USA will lead to loss of patient privacy. It is like arguing that because the brakes failed on my car, all cars should have their brakes removed because brakes don't work. These are nonesense arguments and IMHO should have no place in WP.-- Tom ( talk) 13:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, if you want an example of how a centralized system is less efficient then the private sector then compare Cuba in 1959 with modern communist Cuba or the "economic" performance of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe under communism with their performance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Notwithstanding, we don't add criticisms here based on your notions of fairness. Stop eliminating sourced material and POV pushing. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 15:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Re: Effect of regulation on costs in "for profit" and "not for profit". I deleted an edit by Freedomwarrior because the inference cannot be made. Regulation may or may not affect "for profit" and "not for profit" institutions differently but the answer is I suspect we do not know because the article you cite (not peer reviewed I assume) actually does not examine this issue. You may think that regulation is synonomous with UHC but it does not have to be. Regulation is a different thing altogether. On the other hand, I do not agree with the implicit assumption in the original text you edited that UHC is equated only with "not for profit" hospitals. The findings seem to me to be an argument for turning "for profit" hospitals into "not for profit" ones.-- Tom ( talk) 13:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Tom, I don't know whether you've studied economics or not, but here's a very basic proposition for you: regulation tends to increase the costs of providing a service in "for profit" (free market or semi-free market) and "not for profit" (socialized) institutions, since it tends to add to the overhead costs and even the cost of treatment itself.
I understand that regulation is not necessarily synonymous with universal health care; you are mistaken, however, if you think that the two things are not at all related, since regulation can be one of the means to arrive at so-called universal health care--i.e. the current incarnation of Hillarycare relies almost exclusively on regulation to arrive at socialized medicine.
As for the rest, I don't understand what your problem/concern is. The blurb on behalf of socialized medicine attacks so-called "for-profit" medicine and the costs that are associated with it. As in other articles, I am modifying the text to reflect the fact that the United States has a substantial regulatory system (that increases costs). This is a statement of fact. Unless you don't think that the United States' system is sufficiently regulated... Freedomwarrior ( talk) 16:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I said that regulations tend to increase the costs of providing a service, not that they always increase costs. Indeed, there are some regulations that can be beneficial, as your example suggests. Nonetheless, as the Cato Institute paper can attest, the regulations that health care providers in the United States face, increase costs without delivering the benefits of so-called universal health care. That is not, however, why I am insisting that we add the short comment on the level of regulation in the United States. While I don't dispute the contention that nearly all health care systems in the world are fairly heavily regulated, neither the United States nor any country with a substantial level of regulation can be used as a stand in for "for profit," because of the substantial level of regulation which undermines the profit motive. If health care in the United States--or any country with a similar level of regulation--is to be used as a stand in for anything, it should be used to reflect the horrors of having a mixed, semi-socialized system. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 17:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Gregalton, I have not said that socialized medicine is the solution. While I wasn't arguing that "health care in the US is so heavily regulated that it is akin to the costs borne by a system of universal health care, but without the benefits," I did agree with that contention because a semi-socialized system offers few of the benefits of a socialized system (for instance, the supposed universal coverage, etc.)--which is what you stated--and few of the benefits of a free market system--which I should've mentioned earlier--, while generating unnecessary costs. My personal preference would be for the United States to adopt a fully laissez-faire health care system.
By using "so-called" to describe most universal health care systems, I am simply emphasizing that they do not provide the supposed benefit of universal coverage, because there are individuals who have to resort to coverage outside of the national health service to obtain treatment. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 19:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Tom, this is the version I am proposing:
"For-profit healthcare in states with significant levels of regulation has been shown to have higher expenses and worse results than not for profit care in such countries."
My edit does not change the meaning of the original text, it simply makes it clear to readers that we are talking about "for profit" health care providers in countries with significant levels of regulation. All that I am doing is making sure that readers know full well what the nature of the system that is being criticized. As far as I'm know, there's nothing inappropriate with that--i.e. my edit does not violate wikipedia regulations.
By the way, if you want to blame the "high rate of coronary by-pass operations in the US or those MRI scans" on someone, you'd do well to blame it on frivolous malpractice suits--i.e. regulations--, not the market. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 20:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
One of the claims made on behalf of universal health care is that it is superior to "for profit" medicine. I read that as a claim that "universal health care" is superior to the kind of health care that would be available in a country with a laissez-faire system, which is non-sense because there are no (or few) countries with such a system. All that I am doing is amending the claim to reflect the fact that it is criticizing "for profit" medicine in a country with a semi-socialized system. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 20:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
But if you say that you would be changing the meaning. The original text had the clear and simple message that not-for-profit hospitals have lower overheads and better health outcomes than the for-profit medicine (irrespective of regulation). Now you are tying that claim to regulation is somehow influential in this. But there is no evidence for it.
Also many universal systems DO have for-profit providers and they are still universal. I am not sure what your problem is with understanding these simple matters. Your answers seems to be saying either "universal systems are not universal" and that "for "profit medicine" in the US is actually "socialized medicine" or even worse. All those positions seem to be POV to me and not mainstream. -- Tom ( talk) 20:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Tom, you are straying from the text. Here it is the proposed text:
"For-profit healthcare *in states with significant levels of regulation* has been shown to have higher expenses and worse results than *not for profit care in such countries*."
Here is the original: "For-profit healthcare has been shown to have higher expenses and worse results"
The sole difference between the two versions is that the modified text reflects the fact that the studies were conducted in a country with a significant level of regulation (something that you are not disputing) while the original text ignores this. Your claim that I am somehow engaging in original research is non-sense. My addition is a statement of fact, nothing more. Whether or not regulations in the United States affects costs (which I think it does), is irrelevant and besides the point (I've only discussed it on this page because you raised it, not because I care). The addition of "in states with significant levels of regulation" does not amount to a claim that "regulation is somehow influential in [increasing costs]," as you seem to believe. Indeed, it doesn't amount to anything more than a clarification on the nature of the United States' system. How this "obscures" the previous editor's edit is incomprehensible to me.
Your countless attempts to distort and fudge the facts on free medicine, while indicative of how weak the argument for socialized medicine is, are unacceptable. Stop making inane objections to the inclusion of sourced material, which does not alter the meaning of the text. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 21:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I have lived in those countries, and from my own experience, I know that they don't have universal health care. This is how it works: If you are an employee, your employer is required by law to pay for your health insurance. This contribution is a percentage of your income, but the insurance cover is the same for everybody. If you are not employed, and claim unemployment benefit or a pension from the state, the authority that pays your unemployment benefit (the employment center) is required to pay for your health insurance.
HOWEVER: Health insurance is not provided by the state, but by the "Krankenkassen" (semi-private insurance companies). If you are neither employed by a company nor claiming unemployment benefit nor a state pension, you are NOT automatically insured. You must either pay for insurance out of your own pocket (around €350 /month) or go without insurance - ie. pay the FULL cost of your medical treatment out of your own pocket. The problem is that NOT everybody has the right to claim unemployment benefits and pensions. Self-employed people, unemployed university graduates, young people who have worked for less than a year, formerly self-employed pensioners, the long-term unemployed, immigrants, expats and a number of other groups are not eligible for them. In principle, this system resembles the USA (where only certain groups are eligible for insurance by government) more than the UK (where every citizen is automatically insured by the NHS). In practice, the number of people without health insurance in Germany and Austria is lower than in the US, but ONLY because millions of Germans and Austrians (who are more risk averse than Americans) choose to spend those €350, not because the state is providing insurance for them. The number of uninsured is still significant. In Germany alone 300,000-400,000 people are estimated to be uninsured [8]. That is about 0.4% of the population.
In other words, health care is not a right in Austria and Germany, and "universal health care" does not exist in the way defined in this article: "government mandated programs intended to ensure that all citizens, and sometimes permanent residents, of a governmental region have access to most types of health care". How is this relevant to this article? Firstly, I would like to remove the claim that "The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system". If America can be considered to be lacking universal health care, then so can Germany. Even in a practical sense: The American government spends just as much on healthcare as the German government, namely 7% of the GPD (source: WHO). And when 0.4% of Germans are uninsured, we can hardly speak of anything even approaching "universal". Secondly, I would like to remove Germany and Austria from the map of countries that have universal health care. Cambrasa ( talk) 13:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Cambrasa ( talk) 13:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I believe the balancedpolitics.org site link [9] does not meet the standards for a reference. I can see the other side of the argument, that this section is about the debate, but this does not appear to meet even minimal standards for notability. (In general, the links in this section need to be cleaned up). Any objection to my removing them (with reasons)?-- Gregalton ( talk) 05:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
These are politically charged words and neither is part of the essential definition of "Universal Health Care." As far as I can tell there is no 'universally' accepted definition of 'Universal Health Care.' Perhaps this article should be retitled, "Universal Health Care According To John Edwards." Many would say that it isn't really 'Universal Health Care' unless it's a single payer system payed for out of tax revenues which automatically covers every citizen. Other than that, though, what we're talking about is 'universally available' health care.
This is a weird topic. If "universal" means every single person is covered (the more standard definition) then much of this article isn't about Universal Health Care. Neither 'mandates' nor 'compulsory insurance' accomplishes that. The only sensible interpretation of "Universal" in the context of this article is 'universally available,' but even that is weird.
We have laws today that mandate emergency room services for anyone who walks in the door--it's just a matter of who pays. Maybe the article title should be changed to "Universal Health Insurance?"
But let's keep the politics out of it. We can't be defining UHC as requiring mandates or compulsory insurance--those definitions are both incorrect and way too politically biased. Mystylplx ( talk) 00:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
A key point of UHC in most (all?) countries is that patients cannot be refused emergency care (or indeed almost any care, once they have the resources), even if it is extremely expensive; a good example being a liver transplant. Duty of care in the US requires docs to treat in all viable cases, but financial restrictions don't allow it. My experience with transplant surgery in the US meant I saw patients regularly turned away due to lack of insurance - these patients sometimes died as a result. Transplants can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so patients could not reasonably be expected to pay for them if their insurance fails. This could not occur in Ireland, UK, France etc. While it would have been original research to add this to the article, yesterday CNN reported on an interesting story ( http://edition.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/12/21/teen.liver.transplant.ap/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail) which documented such a refusal by a US insurance company.
My question is: can this now be added as a proposition point in the Yea vs. Nay debate on UHC?
Perhaps it could be used as a source for the second-last point on the prop side:
The profit motive adversely affects the motives of healthcare. Because of medical underwriting, which is designed to mitigate risk for insurance providers, applicants with pre-existing conditions, some of them minor, are denied coverage or prevented from obtaining health insurance at a reasonable cost. Health insurance companies have greater profits if fewer medical procedures are actually performed, so agents are pressured to deny necessary and sometimes life-saving procedures to help the bottom line.[citation needed]
Also, it would be great to get more sources for the opposition side too - still a lot of citations needed.
Cheers! Conor ( talk) 12:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
We've had some back and forth edits on the language describing the U.S. system, based on the IOM report. The website says that it's the "only wealthy, industrialized nation" to lack universal health care, but the body of the report qualifies it a bit differently. It says that the U.S. is "one of the few industrialized nations" to lack universal health care [10]. It isn't clear to me what the criteria is for "wealthy" in this context. It strikes me that the second characterization is better sourced, and makes the critical point adequately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.79.247 ( talk) 17:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
i'm afraid i'm unclear on how this is legitimate. the section 'debate in the united states' has three arguments in favor of UHC that are referenced to italian language sources. this makes no sense at all. the debate in the united states isn't put forth by italian language sites. this strikes me as little more than POV pushing under the guise of being additions to the pro/con section on the US debate. Anastrophe ( talk) 16:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
The 'debate in the united states' is also done using comparison with countries with different systems: you can check this for most of the points raised. Unfortunately, the references to prove what happens in other countries may be more easily available in other countries' languages.
Of course we all are encouraged to find and add better references for each topic cited in the article.
The debate about Universal health care is not limited to US, so we should also consider to change the section title.
An other problem with references: the arguments used in the debate are listed as "common arguments forwarded by the ...", however, for no argument is given a reference that it is common forwarded indeed, and not used by a few people only. The references are about the argument itself, and not about being common.
Laurusnobilis ( talk) 17:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a debate about UHC in the rest of the world (some quick found references: [11] [12]); let's omit the discussion about whether it is "notable" or not, however it is less prominent than in US.
Most of the argument used are not specific to US, for instance, whether health is a right, and "Unequal access and health disparities still exist in universal health care systems".
My proposal is to change the section name from "Debate in the United States" to something without reference to US, and "common arguments ..." into "arguments ...". Of course, only relevant (in the sense of the wikipedia policy) argument should be listed.
Each country in European union has a different health care system, hence is possible that you don't find English references for most of the Europen union health care systems.
Laurusnobilis ( talk) 19:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not really clear why there is a section in this article about the specific debate in the United States at all. If discussion about that debate belongs anywhere in WP it belongs in the article Health care in the United States with a simple cross reference to that additional material in the United States section of the current article. This article is about Universal health care and the US does not have Universal health care. End of story. Its not the only country without UHC and it would be very dull to represent every country's issues here.-- Tom ( talk) 21:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
US does not have Universal health care, yes, but in US there is a debate about adopting it.
The debate about advantages or disadvantages of UHC is general and not specific to US, so it makes sense to have this section, and to have it here Laurusnobilis ( talk) 23:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
the following quote from the NEJM was added recently: "Although there are laws prohibiting or curtailing private health care in some provinces, they can be changed". while an accurate quote, it tends to misrepresent the reality. the legislative process is long, slow, and laborious. the fact that this sentence attempts to soften is this reality: There are laws prohibiting or curtailing private healthcare in some canadian provinces. it would be better to cite the reality, not NEJM's speculations. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This reads like it was written by advocates or activists for universal health care in the United States, with the intention of making the rest of the world look like nirvana, for the purpose of promoting a particular kind of universal health care in the United States, a kind perhaps not available in the countries listed as having universal health care in the article.
I live in Japan, which is listed, without qualification, as having universal health care. Here's what Japan actually has: Either your employer administers a health care plan, or you buy it from the city. Only larger employers have their own plans. They cost maybe $350 per month. Cities charge maybe $500 per month. These costs will vary with location. You get a health insurance card when you join. With that card 70 percent of your costs are covered. If you don't work for a large employer who deducts the payments and you don't pay the city's fee, you don't get health care. If you don't have the 30 percent co-payment, you don't get health care and you don't get medicine.
Is this what most Americans understand to be universal health care? In the U.S. if you don't buy health insurance, you don't get health care. In Japan if you don't buy the city's health insurance, you don't get health care. (There is some free health care: most cities offer a free annual exam (blood and urine, chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, weight and height), and there is some 100 percent care for the disabled in some cities.)
I wonder how many of the other countries "with universal health care" in the list don't really have universal health care when examined in detail.
Japan's system basically works because the population is mostly homogeneous, there is a large middle class and fewer poor than in the U.S., and people just pay for health insurance. They put priority on paying for the insurance, over buying a car or eating out or having another kid or whatever. Those who don't pay are in the same boat as the U.S.
Don't get me wrong: I love the Japanese system. I get to choose my doctors, mostly showing up without an appointment. I can just go to another doctor for the same problem if one doctor's treatment doesn't satisfy me. There are no records or cross-checking to prevent that.
Me again. Those sources are not correct.
Practically speaking, most employers will deduct your health insurance payment, and you don't have a lot of choice about it, I suppose. But I know expats working for Japanese employers who have talked them into not deducting the payment when they told them they had purchased their own insurance from overseas providers.
If you are self employed, unemployed, or work for a small company (I have experienced all three of those states), you simply do not have to pay for health insurance, and nobody tracks you down and asks you about it. The only way to get insurance is to hop on the subway to the ward office and apply for it and pay for it, about 50,000 yen a month (it varies by city, this was Nerima Ward in Tokyo circa 2004). If you don't pay for insurance, you don't get a card. If you don't have a card, one of two things happens (I have personal experience with both): (1) The doctor refuses to treat you, or (2) they ask for 100 percent payment in cash, rather than the normal 30 percent copayment. If you have a card an forget it, same thing. They either ask you to go get the card, or they take a deposit of 100 percent of the cost pending your return with the card, at which point they refund 70 percent. And, by the way, if you have a card and don't have the 30 percent copayment? No treatment.
Now mind you, practically speaking, a very large percentage of the Japanese population has insurance compared to the United States. Your statement "virtually the whole population is covered" is probably true. It's true because virtually the whole population pays insurance premiums, monthly, with "cash-money," not because it's just magically there from the government.
And those who don't and who get sick, usually get their bills paid by relatives (who may be pissed off at them, but this is kept within the family and dealt with outside the public system).
As for the statement on the Japanese Web site to the effect that "everybody is required to join," I suspect that is similar to the "requirement" that you pay for public television. Since there is no sanction, many people don't pay their NHK bill. Even if you may be in some sense "required" to buy insurance, there is no followup, audit, investigation, census, central record keeping or whatever by the city to check on this. And if you don't have it, you don't get care.
So in summation, there is a single nationwide system to which doctors bill for medical care (actually, two parallel systems, as I explained in my first post), but it's not a universal entitlement, but rather a monthly premium billed, cost controlled insurance plan that is the same for everybody, without the requirement of medical checks and the like to qualify. But still, you need to pay your 30,000 to 45,000 yen monthly premium.
My problem is that Japan is being used here as implicit support for the idea that there should be a zero-premium entitlement style universal health plan in the United States ("because _everyone else has it_"). That is not what Japan has, and I suspect if a country-by-country, ground-level check by informed expats living in other countries in the list here were made, there may be similar discrepancies.
The acid test: does a homeless person living in a cardboard box on the west exit of Shinjuku station get health care? No. He gets nothing. In a Canadian style system would that person get health care? My understanding is yes. So you can call these two systems universal health care, but they are different. If you apply Canada to the U.S., everybody gets care, but if you applied Japan, you'd get a huge number of people not paying their three or four hundred dollars, and things might not be so different than now. The cost differences between a Canadian and a Japanese style health care system would be pretty massively different in the U.S., I'd reckon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.216.99.100 ( talk) 11:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
"particularly since you are not disputing the fact that you are simply trying to bully your opinion onto this and other articles" "However, if you insist on foisting your particular opinion on readers, then you are engaging in a violation of the rules." "They do not justify your efforts to transform this article into a US bashing session."
"I have so far refused to play the little game of finding citations, because I've thought it contemptible to have to do such a thing" "Very simply, there is no reason why your opinion should get to trump mine." "I am not going to argue about which of the different possible tests for determining whether a country is "wealthy" and "industrialized" is best, because 1) I don't have the time to do so and 2) I don't need to."
-- Jorfer ( talk) 17:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Freedomwarrior: I have reinstated this. I see this as the intent of the schemes that are implemented. Tax and subsidy are POV. I don't think anyone in the UK thinks their health care is subsidized, except to the extend that some people get out more than they pay in and vice versa... but that happens in insurance. You don't talk about motor insurance being subsidized. Its insurance. It just happens that the government is the insurer. You will not find a UK official web site referring to health taxes or health subsidies... its your POV.-- Tom ( talk) 20:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
DoopDoop: I see you have a strikingly common view of things with Freedomwarrior. Would you by any chance be related? You have again deleted the phrase population insures itself. I know that you may think that this is just semantics, but most UHC is based on a form of National Health Insurance passed by legislation in which the population collective insures itself against paying medical costs at the point of need. The 1948 British system was set up under a scheme known as "National Insurance", and the 2006 Dutch law Zorgverzekeringwet translates as "Health Insurance Law". The Canada Health Act begins with a preamble "An Act relating to cash contributions by Canada and relating to criteria and conditions in respect of insured health services' and extended health care services". They are not called health tax and health subsidy laws. As I say above in another section, no Briton thinks that health care is subsidized because they know it is collectively paid for by contributions paid for by contributions over a lifetime and neither do Finns where I live now. And I suspect Canadians think they are insured too. What gives you the right to declare that this isn't a form of collective insurance? -- Tom ( talk) 02:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there a reason that every single anti-UHC point in the For/Against section is derived from documents from the Cato Institute? I know they have different contributors, but it seems a bit limiting... What's the WP view? Is one Institute's POV on a subject enough to cite it? I don't believe so.
-- Conor 22:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Conor is correct. The issue is whether citing only one source is valid under wiki guidelines or not for referencening data. A position is silly or ridiculous or not is merely opinion based. The content (in my opinion) of this entire article would better serve the public if it controlled the opinionated material. This is suppose to be a ENCYCLOPEDIA article, not a debate forum. There are other cites and links, even within wikipedia, for that, such as here. Not in the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.246.50 ( talk) 18:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems that Publicly-funded health care covers nothing except universal health care. -- Doopdoop ( talk) 22:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
So far the only difference presented is in the details of USA health care system. But those details are covered in both articles. Also please explain why there is no Universal vehicle insurance page (only vehicle insurance page). -- Doopdoop ( talk) 23:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
(undenting) I've made an attempt to meld the two different versions of the lead into something of a compromise version. I think the WHO statistics bear out the point that public funding is not the only mechanism used to achieve universal health care, and that mixed public-private funding is fairly typical. I will add references to the WHO statistics in each of the country areas cited in this article as a way of illustrating the blend of funding (and varied degrees of "public") that go into universal health care systems around the world. -- Sfmammamia ( talk) 22:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to be bold and put an auto-archiver to work here. Any objections welcome...-- Gregalton ( talk) 12:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
The article currently states that "Universal healthcare is unfair to healthy tax payers because it gives people who smoke, drink, do drugs, and eat unhealthily unfair benefits"
This is not entirely true. Across most of Europe, tobacco and alchohol are taxed heavily to both discourage behavior that leads to ill-health and to ensure that users (who do indeed add to the burden of health care costs) meet a fairer share of the cost. In the UK, a general agreement between the NHS and the motor insurance industry ensures that the NHS receives a sum of money each year from all motor insurers to meet the health care costs caused by motor accidents. This agreement avoids the need for every claim to be contested, keeps the lawyers out and costs down. It does however mean that motorists are making extra contributions towards heath care through their insurance premiums. There has even been talk of taxing "junk food" but politicians are wary to do so because there are rather too many value judgements that would never reach consensus.-- Tom ( talk) 23:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Why are there virtually no mentions of the healthcare systems in Europe?
England is about the worst funded and lowest quality health care n Europe. Some countries like Germany have a system on mandatory private insurance. Some countries like France has a completely private care part of the system but with fixed payouts by a single payer stabilizing the system. Why is non of this explained?
Do we even have articles on these systems? If no, just ask someone to translate them from the French and German wikipedia's, then summarize them here.
What have you people been doing?!? JeffBurdges ( talk) 12:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Jeff: You say that England has about the lowest quality care in Europe. An interesting claim. I'd be interested to know where you get that information from because if its true it represents a big change since the last major assessment was done by the WHO. Perhaps you can tell us here or at National Health Service or Healthcare in the United Kingdom. Its even more remarkable because the UK has increased spending from about 6.7 per cent of GDP on health in 1997 (the date of the stats below) to about 8.1 per cent today, so other countries must have been doing phenomenally well too.
The WHO in 1997 ranked the UK in 18th place out of 191 in a World league table of performance attainment ahead of 21 other European countries. These include Ireland(19th), Switzerland(20th), Belgium(21st), Sweden(23rd), Cyrpus(24th), Germany(25th), Finland(31st), Denmark(34th), Solvenia(38th), Croatia (43rd), Poland(50th), Slovakia(62nd), Hungary(66th), Lithuania(73rd), Ukraine,(79th),FYR Macedonia(89th), Romania(99th), Bulgaria(102nd), Latvia(105th), Yugoslavia(106th), and finally Russia at (130th). All of which are European countries. And as far as I recall, the UK health service has improved greatly since these stats were taken with huge capital and people investment and grealty decreased wait times.
In overall attainment the UK was, in 1997 ranked 9th out of 191 countries, with an index score of 91.6 and only 6 European countries bettered that. France managed 91.9. The worst country scored 35.7. The USA scored a very respectable 91.1 and was placed 15th, just behind Germany. -- Tom ( talk) 18:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I deleted the following paragraph recently added, because almost all of it is outdated, poorly or unsourced, or contradicts reliable sources:
Universal health care in Canada has caused some problems for the country's funding. On December 24, 1999 the Toronto Star reported "The Ontario government is bailing out deficit ridden hospitals to the tune of $196 million." In the same report the paper also stated a shortage in the number of doctors. Canada's health care has also been seen as inferior to private health care, such as in the United States. The British Columbia Medical Association released a paper criticizing this and calling for "the establishment of maximum wait times or 'care guarantees' for various medical procedures" and saying "patients not helped within the guaranteed time frame should be able to seek care out of province - at no cost to themselves." This is because it's criminal for citizens to pay out of pocket for private health care. The only other two countries with these laws are North Korea and Cuba. [3]
Here are the problems I see with the paragraph:
A more balanced and better sourced critique of Canadian healthcare might fit in this article. But those are contained in the other articles I noted. -- Sfmammamia ( talk) 15:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I just thought I ought to point out that quality of cites given on the "left" side supporting universal health appear to be of much higher quality than those on the right, which ironically enough depends more on nonscientific, right wing/libertarian sources like the CATO Institute. (This somehow seems to be a familiar pattern....)
Also I came across this detailed, pro-universal health care "position paper" paper by the American College of Physicians titled Achieving a High-Performance Health Care System with Universal Access: What the United States Can Learn from Other Countries ( PDF shortcut). This appears to be a good ref to add for multiple cites in the article. FYI. -BC aka Callmebc ( talk) 14:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
The Century Foundation, Century Foundation Press, 2/7/2008]
I've removed the external link to JaaJoe.com Just Another Average Joe twice. According to Whois, the domain was just registered 3 months ago. It's not a notable source. The main page has a Google page rank of 0. The article is not professionally written and the author does not even use a full name, just "Cisco." It's also been spammed by the same IP 24.243.31.156 ( talk) on the Cardiopulmonary resuscitation page. -- Lifeguard Emeritus ( talk) 09:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the claim that "most care is subsidized by taxpayers" is inherently wrong.
Most health care in universal systems is in fact paid for the users of the system. In a big pot kind of way the government ensures that the very healthy subsidize the needs of the very sick, the very wealthy subidize the health care costs of the very poor, and the economically active subsidize the economically inactive (e.g. children, retired people and the unemployed). But the vast majority of users are not permanently in those extremes and will pay in over time broadly what they get out (either through tax or compulsory insurance). Indeed, most people pass through all of these phases at some point in their lifetime so subsidy is probably not the right word. For most of us, its a way to even out the burden of these factors over a lifetime.
Health care in The Netherlands is only 5% funded by government and is a universal system. So it is mosly not subsidized by taxpayers. I think most Britons do not think their health care is subidized either, even though they get it for free when they need it. The NHS is not government charity. In the long run we pay for it through taxes. At the extremes, if we are lucky, we pay our taxes and never fall ill. But we don't begrudge that because because we know we could just as easily have been very seriously ill. Britons (and I presume the Dutch) vitually never have to worry about health care costs whatever their health or financial status. -- Tom ( talk) 10:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
5%? No way. It's been more like 60%, with an increasing shift to more private insurance under recent reforms. England has 85% public funding, Germany about 75%, Canada is 70%,the US has about 45%....Netherlands is far less a market-oriented system than the US, until recent reforms the extent to which the private/public funding split will need to wash-out after the changes are fully in effect. Numerous OECD sources and Holland's government documents clear this up, but I don't have the figures right at hand. JackWikiSTP ( talk) 17:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Here we go again. Let me repeat what I said on the talk page on socialized medicine:
There is no such thing as an objective definition for the terms "industrialized" or "wealthy." The questions that one would ask to determine whether a country is either of those two things is open to individual interpretation. For instance, you might say that measuring GDP per capita is a more effective approach to determine whether a country is wealthy, while I might argue that looking at the aggregate GDP is better. Who's right? Well, that's a question of opinion. Another example, what's the appropriate level of "industrialization" for a country to be considered "industrialized?" Indeed, what does it mean for a country to be "industrialized"? Is it possible for a country to be "un-industrialzied"? Again, those are all matters of opinion. At what point is a country objectively "wealthy"? Finally, explain why some "industrialized" countries with high GDPs (i.e. wealthy by some people's standards) that don't have universal health care, like China or India, shouldn't be counted alongside the US. It is a matter of opinion, and it should be reflected as such. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 05:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to argue about which of the different possible tests for determining whether a country is "wealthy" and "industrialized" is best, because 1) I don't have the time to do so and 2) I don't need to. By conceding that "there is no absolute standard for the word industrialized," you made my point for me. My changes simply reflect that there are some who believe that the United States it not the only country without some form of universal health care and others who do. All that you're saying is that you (and other editors) have a right to pass on your opinions as facts to this article's readers, which constitutes a violation of Wikipedia rules. Therefore, I once again insist that we edit the text to reflect an impartial statement of the facts in the form of the compromise put forth by Gregalton on the Socialized Medicine talk page. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 07:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
These "standardized" definitions are normative in nature. I have so far refused to play the little game of finding citations, because I've thought it contemptible to have to do such a thing (particularly since you are not disputing the fact that you are simply trying to bully your opinion onto this and other articles). But if you need a source for the very obvious claim that there is not an objective definition of wealth, you can turn to Van den Bossche's treatise on WTO law or a random journal on economics.
There is no requirement that you provide an objective definition of what constitutes an "industrialized" or "wealthy" country, if you recognize that those claims are not factual, but rather normative. That does not violate Wikipedia rules. (And that is why I did not press the issue on the socialized medicine page further) However, if you insist on foisting your particular opinion on readers, then you are engaging in a violation of the rules. Very simply, there is no reason why your opinion should get to trump mine. As I've said before, an opinion is an opinion is an opinion. Your sources are worthless (other than to demonstrate that there are some who are of the opinion that the US is the only wealthy country without some form or universal health care). They do not justify your efforts to transform this article into a US bashing session.
Ohh, by the way....not "every" definition of "wealthy" countries relies on per capita levels of GDP as you seem to proclaim from on high. Broadly speaking, those in the security studies field are prone to looking at a country's aggregate wealth alongside per capita GDP, etc. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 08:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
-- Jorfer ( talk) 17:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Let's try this Sfmammamia: WP:ASF. According to wikipedia rules, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." Therefore, [[User:Sfmammamia|Sfmammamia], Wikpiedia does have a rule against including normative statements (i.e. opinions) as factual statements, because such comments tend to amount to nothing more than blatant POV pushing (as is the case with the comment in dispute). Sfmammamia, there's a reason that editors are not allowed to list their own particular opinions as facts, as Gregalton insists. For instance, (this may sound familiar since it's what Gregalton is doing) I could go to any number of websites that share my own particular bias and just find links with whatever biased claim I want to insert, and foist it on editors. Ultimately, the article would become nothing more than a blog on behalf of a certain position (which is what some editors seem to insist on). If you are allowed to pass of your normative claims as fact, you have no justification for excluding me from including something as fact provided I have a source that makes the same claim (no matter how inane it happens to be). I could even include things like, "the proletarian revolution is inevitable" in the article on communism (since Marx makes that claim). See the problem? A source that reflects a normative opinion cannot transform that opinion into facts (or else, you're going to have a massive edit war on your hands when other editors decide to turn their opinions into facts).
Sfmammamia, I provided a source at the top of the thread, which undermines Gregalton's claim to having some form of an absolute standard for. I do not have an on-line version (since it's a treatist on WTO law), however, I can provide page number, etc. if you insist on it. If there is an absolute standard Gregalton, you've demurred on demonstrating it; therefore, I would invite you to either "enlighten" me or refrain from wasting my time with your silly claims about non-existent "objective" standards. The claim must be modified to demonstrate that it is not a factual (positive claim) but rather a normative claim (an opinion). Failure to do so means that this article is violating wikipedia rules.
By the way, Gregalton, unless you have a Masters or a PhD in the relevant field you should be a bit more modest and stop making enormous categorical claims about what is and isn't said in a field... Freedomwarrior ( talk) 18:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC) a The term industrialized is recognized as a mostly objective term with subjectivity only really near the cutoff mark due to the lack of numerical guidelines, but there are recognized taxonomical guidelines (some of which I outlined above) that all indicate China and India do not fall into this category. A limited amount of subjectivity does not make a term subjective. You may want to look at the article Developed country. You will notice that there is a high level of consistency among the lists. You will see that by any standard China and India are not industrialized countries.-- Jorfer ( talk) 18:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Jorfer, I have to laugh at your claim that "A limited amount of subjectivity does not make a term subjective." What does it make it then? Objective? That most editors are consistent in their opinions here and elsewhere reflects their willingness to accept opinions on the basis of authority, it does not reflect a set of objective facts. If a statement is subjective, as the one that you are defending, I don't understand why there is such strong opposition to reflecting the fact that it is the opinion of a group of like-minded individuals. Can someone please explain this to me? Are you scared that readers will suddenly realize that it's just a cheap shot at the US?
In describing the WTO process for determining whether a country is "developed" or "not developed," Peter Van de Bossche says that countries are left to determine in what categories their level of development puts them in (this is in the 2005 version of his case book on The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization, the exact text is found at page 101). The determination is based on a subjective self-assessment on the part of the state. Very simply, the organization has recognized what I've been arguing: there is no objective means for categorizing a country into any of these groups. These are all subjective valuations, which vary from group-to-group and academic-to-academic.
Having said that, I have not objection to the change that you are proposing Sfmammamia, since it would reflect that it is a claim being made by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and not an objective pronouncement. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 19:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Martin van Rijn: lf you want people to have more responsibility and more choice to get better care, and not have a top-down decision-making process you need two very important rules. One is: guarantee good quality care. The Health lnspection ensures that quality is guaranteed in the Netherlands. And you need a market referee who ensures that negotiations between insurers and care providers are honest. To avoid creating monopolies and power blocks.
And this from http://www.europeanvoice.com/downloads/NL_New_Health_Insurance_System.pdf about the insurance regulator and the Netherlands Care Authority...
Registration with the Supervisory Board for Health Care Insurance (CTZ) Health care insurance companies must additionally be registered with the CTZ to allow supervision of the services they provide under the Health Insurance Act and to qualify for payments from the equalisation fund.
The choice for private insurance that assigns greater responsibilities to insurers who are allowed to make a profit makes it inappropriate for the government to supervise the effectiveness of the way health insurance is operated. Therefore, the main objective in overseeing lawful performance of the new-style health insurance is for the government to ascertain whether the care insurer is fulfilling its obligation to provided insured persons with the services to which they are entitled under the Health Insurance Act. The regulator that exercises this supervision, the Supervisory Board for Health Care Insurance, CTZ, has various duties and powers under which it:
with the law;
performance of its regulatory role;
Tasks of the Netherlands Care Authority The Netherlands Care Authority exists to: · regulate the markets for providing, insuring and procuring care. This task extends to making and monitoring markets as well as regulating them. The authority regulates tariffs and services. It also promotes the transparency of markets and the availability of information about choices available to consumers; · oversee lawful implementation by care insurers of the provisions of the Health Insurance Act, including the care and acceptance obligations and the prohibition of premium differentiations; · oversee lawful and effective performance of the provisions of the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act by care insurers, care offices and the central office that administers the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act.
Principal new powers of the authority
The most important new power held by the Netherlands Care Authority is to impose specific obligations on parties with significant market power. It has been given the power to do this in order to cultivate the care procurement market in fields where free pricing exists. The authority further has powers to lay down general rules for care providers and care insurers to increase the transparency of the market for consumers. The authority will also be given the power to publish transparency information if care providers and care insurers fail to do so.
Essentially it is all about transparency.-- Tom ( talk) 19:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
"That most editors are consistent in their opinions here and elsewhere reflects their willingness to accept opinions on the basis of authority, it does not reflect a set of objective facts."
"I don't understand why there is such strong opposition to reflecting the fact that it is the opinion of a group of like-minded individuals. Can someone please explain this to me? Are you scared that readers will suddenly realize that it's just a cheap shot at the US?"
"Very simply, the organization has recognized what I've been arguing: there is no objective means for categorizing a country into any of these groups. These are all subjective valuations, which vary from group-to-group and academic-to-academic."
This debate about the meaning of “industrialized" and "wealthy" is pointless and off-the-mark for this topic.
What people mean--and what is said in most quarters--is a reference to the OECD nations, often referred to as the “Western democracies” and also "industrialized democracies." The point is that the reference is to the OECD nations, all (most? to avoid that debate) of which meet the standard of industrial and wealthy. Referring to the OECD nations is an objective standard. Though there are now some OECD nations that aren’t considered under the traditional "Western Democracy" label. I'll --or some else can--try to work out appropriate language, which would include the link to OECD's page, but I think everyone is referring to the same thing--including most readers who generally understand the given labels--OECD exempted. I see “wealthy" and 'industrialized" as more subjective and less normative, but this topic isn't the place to get into those debates. JackWikiSTP ( talk) 17:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I have added examples to the debate section numerous times. They have been sourced. The sources are reputable sources (not just CATO-like think tanks.) They complied with NPOV. They were relevant to the topic at hand. They did not erase any other entries on the article. They have been removed shortly after (ie less than 5 minutes.) Why are they being removed? I know I am supposed to assume good faith, but the fact that they are consistently removed from the "con" side of the argument makes me wonder if not everyone is willing to have this article contain all relevant information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.214.17.17 ( talk) 00:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I am proposing that the article Socialized medicine be merged into Universal health care. I see these two articles as being broadly about the exact same issue, where socialized medicine only focuses on the more negative political connotations in the American political landscape. However, Wikipedia is not US-centric. Rather, it should represent a worldwide view of the subject. The purpose of providing the reader with the most accurate, verifiable, and neutral exposition of health care programs is not best achieved by the division of this subject into two separate articles. ⟳ausa کui × 02:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The traditional meaning of Socialism as practice and ideology--based on Marx's definition--is when the means of production (land, labor, capital) are in public hands. (There are other definitions of socialism dating back to the 19th century, but the means of production issue is always key). A component of that is public funding. However, I want to point out to an above comment, mere public funding does not constitute being "socialist" (to refer to a specific sector rather than an overall system or philosophy) when it is not accompanied by public ownership of the means of production. Were the “socialist" label to be applied as a definition to any publicly-funded activity, then the entirety of government spending would be defined as socialist. While some (e.g. some libertarians) might hold that position, it is only an infinitesimal number in the US--or elsewhere in the West. The public provision of health care services--with publicly owned facilities--is the mark of “socialist,” e.g. Britain, though they do have some private services and spending. No Western nation has either 100% private or public funding.
More generally, "universal" refers to access, not to an economic model, e.g. socialist, capitalist. The access and economic model concepts are distinct, as previously noted. Hence, discussing "universal" as a separate topic is appropriate. I think the major details of other nations is too much baggage and takes up too much real estate to the detriment of clarity on the "universal" concept; the level of emphasis on practices diminishes the value of explicating the concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackWikiSTP ( talk • contribs) 18:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The US specific external links were recently deleted, and then that deletion was reverted. I'd like to suggest that they should go. Two arguments were put forward for keeping them: 1) that the US is part of the world, and 2) that they lead to useful information. Both of these comments are absolutely true. but the section of this article on the US links to the more detailed article on Health care reform in the United States, which would seem a much more appropriate place for links dealing specifically with the debate in the US. Moving a lot of the US-specific clutter out of the more general world articles on health care, health reform and heal care systems was one of the primary motivations for creating that article in the first place. Segregating them there still allows people to find the information, while making articles like this one less US-centric. EastTN ( talk) 13:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The image Image:Medicare-brand.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. -- 04:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042072.htm Removing this is blatant censorship and bias at it's worst. YVNP ( talk) 20:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Second paragraph: "Universal health care systems require government involvement, typically in the forms of enacting legislation, mandates and regulation."
Shouldn't it be pointed out that the United States Constitution does not grant the Federal Government the authority, or the power, to regulate, mandate or legislate this issue. A Constitutional Amendment would be required before enacting Universal Health Care in the United States. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.205.71.86 ( talk) 15:34, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
User: Matamoros moved "Universal health care" to "Socialized health care" without any discussion in Talk that I can find -- in fact, Matamoros hasn't done anything else on this article or discussed anything in Talk.
We had a long discussion about a proposal that Socialized medicine be merged into Universal health care, and the consensus was against it, because we decided that socialized health care was not the same as universal health care.
I think it is incorrect to rename this article to "Socialized health care" because there are many universal health care systems that are not socialist. I think the change should be reversed.
What is Matamoros' reason for changing it? What do others think? Nbauman ( talk) 17:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Why would someone replace this whole article with the word "penis"? Dumaka ( talk) 17:17, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
The article states "All treatment is free with the exception of charges for prescriptions". This is correct but may not be completely clear. What this means in affect is that, irrespective of the cost of the drug needed, the dosage (or, for example, the number of pills dispensed), the cost of the prescription is the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.70.28 ( talk) 10:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
here's some images of an NHS hospitals in Scotland that could be used (New Beatson, Glasgow):
http://www.hbs.org.uk/hospitals/pictures/Beatson%20-%20new.jpg
http://www.nhsgg.org.uk/content/mediaassets/locations/beatson300.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpha-ZX ( talk • contribs) 20:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Read the article on the police. Is this article about how the police are 'implemented' in every country in the world and which countries don't have police? I'm no expert on state run/mandated healthcare, but I'd love to know about the different types of implementation, history of implementation, a link to an article 'arguements for state healthcare' and 'arguements against state healthcare'. But 3/4'th's of this article is dedicated to a checklist of countries. Another big chunk is dedicated to the argument around implementation of universal health care in the united states.
Though the templates are a step forward! If we could only get more encyclopedic content in there.-- 70.143.64.199 ( talk) 06:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Editors may wish to be aware that I have today placed a blocking request on User:LincolnStfor perisitently vilolating the spirit of editorial co-operation, for demonstrating bias in his edits, for depleting the usefulness of WP articles on health care to its readers and for making changes so rapidly that they seem to be planned aforethought and dumped on the editing community. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Blocking_request__User:LincolnSt for examples and to express your thoughts if you have any.-- Hauskalainen ( talk) 08:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Someone obviously vandalized this site. Under US section, vulgar words have been inserted. Unsure of how to fix, but seeing this adds to the notion that this site is too biased to use as a reference source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.115.57.83 ( talk) 17:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
In the section on the United States, there is strong Bias towards a pro- Universal Healthcare. The article is practically glorifying it. I dispute the neutrality of this section. Statistics for the other side are provided but not for the negative side. And the cons of the pro-con section are the most general arguments I have heard against universal health care, not to mention the number of pros out weigh the cons.
69.145.140.178 (
talk)
05:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The argument is certainly made in this article for universal health care in the US, most blatantly in the section where it is mentioned that "conservatives can support this because..." then mentions the lower cost spent per person by the government. People disregard the facts that American private health care dollars fund the lion's share of the R&D in the world health care system, and that American companies that shelter income in European countries for a lower tax burden provide much of the funding for health care overseas. I'm not against the idea, but I think if you want to make an argument on a page like this, you need to present legitimate arguments, not impassioned rants. My vote is for removing the "pro-con" approach to the writing and just present facts. Bradbutler01 ( talk) 13:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Bismarck's "Sozialgetzgebung" created universial health care in Germany in 1883. So the NHS part is revisionist crap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.223.47 ( talk) 10:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
http://fadelibrary.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/healthcare-across-eu-borders-a-safe-framework/ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/ldeucom/30/3004.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7484198.stm
Please add a chapter called European Union, this is very important, this will totally change the concept of Universal Health Care in the European Union countries.
Please say it in the way you want, but basically, if you are a European you can go any country you want in the European Union and use the health care system of the other country, your government has to pay the bill. All the information is on the website. Lets say that I am Italian and the hospital in my region do not provide the care I need, I can fly to France or Spain get the help I need there and pay 0 zero cero, THE iTALIAN GOVERMENT HAS TO SEND THE CHECK TO THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT. This was a rule by the European Court of Justice, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.104.87 ( talk) 23:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
It is a known fact that Universal Health Care is implemented in Taiwan. This article lacks information relating to such. http://www.nhi.gov.tw/english/index.asp
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
163.15.178.13 (
talk)
10:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
China to provide universal health care by 2020
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZ2J6GxXq5H15q6GophdmYSPrCPQD97CVB0O1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.104.87 ( talk) 20:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Could you guys please write an article regarding this issue:
In Peru the Universal health Care access become a right, the government will merge the 3 Peruvian health institutions(military, Social Security and Emergency for the poor(kinda medicaid)). Peru will be the 4th real Universal Health Care provider in the Americas, after Canada, Brazil and Cuba. Just to let you guys know, Peru is pro Free trade and business, we have free trade with US, Canada, China, Japan, Australia, South Korea Chile, Indonesia , European Union, EFTA, and looking for one with Australia and Russia. So Peru is not what you will call a closed economy or socialist(US way of naming communists).
Law on Health Insurance published today http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=mSOVQJu0hxY=
Law on Health Insurance marks major reform http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=rsbFfAZYpMU=
I hope this information works, I am pro Universal health care provided by the US government modeling Canada's. Say bye bye to the greedy private providers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.106.14.170 ( talk) 16:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Since conecepts of Universal Healthcare include such VASTLY different methodologies as:
1) Universal Health INSURANCE, where the medical system is basically privatized, but everyone in the country/region has health Insurance supervised by the national govt. (example: Canada)
2) Universal Health CARE, where most of the medical staff and facilities are government-run, with privatized services available within the government system if the government subcontracts to them, and where those desiring more specialized/luxurious services can still go through private doctors and facilities if they pay separately for them supplementally (example: England)
3) Other variations of the above where the goverment is involved in assuring that everyone has health insurance AND/OR healthcare services available to them fully or to to some degree via their government
4) Variations in inclusion or exclusion of prescriptions and how they are handled is also a major distinguishing issue
I would sincerely like to see a better introductory paragraph written to help people understand the MAJOR conceptual differences! It is very upsetting that the American public, especially, constantly equates Universal Health Insurance PROPOSALS as being the equivalent of Universal government-hired/run health CARE practitioners/facilities, simply because noone is pointing out THAT THESE ARE 2 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONCEPTS involved under the topic of Universal Healthcare!
Under nationalized health CARE, your physician works for the government, while under nationalized health INSURANCE, those who fall under that system are usually seeing doctors or going to hospitals that are still in the private business sector - it is their insurance policy that is nationalized.
Could whoever is working on making this section a worthwhile reference for the public on this highly controversial topic - and someone who can write more knowledgably and briefly than myself (sorry about my wordiness) please itemize (as I did in the first paragraph) or in some other way highlight these distinctions, modifying the current first paragraph which presently just casually covers these MAJOR difference in a sort of run-on sentence that minimalizes the importance of recognizing the varying concepts involved in Nationalized Care versus Nationalized Insurance.
Thanks to all who've contributed so far with a goal of making this section useful to all. CentristViewpoint ( talk) 02:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)CentristViewpoint
I think those of you who are commenting are getting too much into the analysis of the usage of these systems - my point is that there should be some type of highlighting/education of the public via Wikipedia so that they EASILY learn from the article that, in fact, there is a MAJOR difference between nationalized health CARE versus nationalized health INSURANCE, and it is not REQUIRED that a government have nationalized health services at the same time if it has nationalized health insurance - example: Medicare is a nationalized INSURANCE plan where patients see doctors/hospitals in the private sector. I just think that since national health insurance (like Medicare) does NOT require one to also have government-run hospitals/physicians, READERS SHOULD BE HELPED TO UNDERSTAND THIS DISTINCTION - any analysis of whether or not either system works totally aside. CentristViewpoint ( talk) 16:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)CentristViewpoint
As someone who supports Universal Health Insurance yet is at least undecided about Universal Health Care, I would like to agree heartily with CentristViewpoint. well, first, I will agree with some others and say that YES, the philosophy behind the two is similar. Both programs assert that healthcare is a basic human right. So, you are right in that respect. But the execution is very different. To put it this way, Cuba is a country with Universal Health Care; that is, the government is entirely in charge of health care, which is indeed more typical of a heavily socialist/communist type of option. On the other hand, Universal Health Insurance is an option that basically fits any ideology to the right of communism and to the left of libertarianism. I think the difference is absolutely critical and should be delineated. Please, someone with the knowledge/time to do so, go ahead and inform us.
This article is about UHC which is different from UHI or socialized medicine though both may be routes to achieving UHC. On the issue of insurance, UHI does not really fit the libertarian view as I think libertarians would argue that they should have the right NOT to have health insurance if they don't want it. The opposing view is that a right to life can depend on the right to access to funding for that care (medical or otherwise) that could be very very expensive and the best way to guarantee that right is thru insurance. A child born without limbs for example will need care for the rest of its life. All forms of insurance are about pooling risk.
The argument then becomes what is the best form of insurance. The best pools are large ones where the risks of the high costs of the few are borne by the many. The largest possible pool for a given nation is the pool of the national population where everyone is IN. That is what UHI is.
The problem with sub-optimal sized pools (as in private insurance models) is that low risk people seek to be outside and high risk people seek to be inside making the risk sharing uneven. Worse still, if the insurance is not mutual, there is a further group to consider and that is the people seeking to profit from the managing of the insurance pools. This makes insurers try to keep healthy people in the pool and kick the unhealthy ones out. It is the behavior of the insurers in doing this which is totally against the whole concept of insurance (which is to pool risk by having everyone pay in when they are well so that if they get sick if and when they fall ill and can have access to funding regardless of how much they have paid in). This has led to the private health insurers finding themselves as the most despised element in America's health care system.
UHI avoids this whole problem of picking and choosing to gain the system (whether by the insured or the insurer) by ensuring through law that everyone is IN the scheme from the point of their conception until the day they die. The downside of a national insurance plan is that coverage is the same for everyone. The child of the gas station attendant gets the same access to care as the child of an investment banker or even the president. Some find that an attractive proposition and others may not. There is no right or wrong way and the best solution is for the people to use democratic action to determine how to proceed (whether by government activity as insurance pool manager or by regulating the insurance market or by some combination of the two). In the UK it is possible for the investment banker to buy better care if he is prepared to pay much more. But the investment banker cannot opt out of the national funding pool. This relieves the state of the cost of his expensive treatment even though it breaks the rule on equity of access. In fact though, fewer than one percent of people in the UK actively insure themselves in the private market though a higher number do also have private options thru their employer (about 6 or 7 per cent I believe). I hope that helps to explain it better.-- Hauskalainen ( talk) 08:31, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
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Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 |
"Not dying from an easily treated disease because a person cannot afford health insurance is not a right." I don't think even the Nation would phrase things in this manner if it were asked to list criticisms its opponents have to universal health care, hence I edited this. Furthermore, is it really appropriate to have unsourced rebuttals to the criticisms?
There are some serious NPOV problems with this section, but I'll leave it to a more experienced Wikipedian to fix it.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tin Man ( talk • contribs) 15:32, 6 September 2006 (UTC).
The lists have some serious problems, and should probably just be summary sections that point to a full article on the topic. For example, it is misleading to state "health care is a right" without explanation, and it is also embarrassing because the artics] 18:51, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not true that SP is a form of UHC. Contray to what many people think, including many single-payer advocates, the two are distinct concepts. Single-payer is a economic model for financing health care. UHC is a concept that all people are guaranteed access to needed medical care; that there is universal coverage, such as under a private and/or public health insurance system. That's it. Single-payer is, in it's literal meaning--which is what's most relevant--simply an economic model for financing medical services delivered to patients. Single-payer also denotes--for nearly all of its advocates--a way of setting up a fee negotiation structure between the payer and providers (this can be referenced by leading SP advocacy organizations such as Physicians for a National Health Program). The payer of single-payer can be either a private or public payer. Single-payer does not imply UHC; they address distinct concepts; respectively, a financing model and access model. Some of the confusion comes from that fact that virtually all single-payer systems also utilize universal coverage, and most single-payer advocates--in the US and elsewhere, also advocate for universal coverage. But they are distinct. UHC is not a type of single-payer, and single-payer is not a type of UHC. I wrote a fair amount of the entry for single-payer and addressed these issues in a slightly more expanded manner there. Single-payer advocates also call for a number of other health system elements, but those, too, are not literally "single-payer." I'm new to this, so I have more to comment about in the article--not having made any edits yet, most saliently the misstatements regarding UHC and socialism and the inapt inclusion of this entry in the Socialism category. If anything is to be done, rather than repeating the info from other entries, like single-payer, or merging, is to hyperlink to the more expanded commentary elsewhere and to strip it out of here, allowing the focus on UHC itself, and secondarily referring to the related issues such as financing mechanisms. ---- my sigg isn't showing up, so by JackWikiSTP
Leads to make this a better site:
Two important details to research on this topic.
The top two systems Italy and France, (Canada way back, because it is controlled by the Doctors Union, and most services are privately supplied, with no quality control.)
France. You pay the doctor first, and then the government re-imburses you, so that you are the audit system.
Italy. Doctors receive a per capita annual salary, so the system, the payment system rewards health. [1]
Canadian system rewards visits.
I will try to do the research...asap...
-- Caesar J. B. Squitti : Son of Maryann Rosso and Arthur Natale Squitti 00:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
These are arguments in favor of public universal health care, to be added, but a reference is needed
User:Caesarjbsquitti's edit of the 24th January [1] leaves the first paragraph making no sense:
How can four countries rank in the top three in the world? (And the top three for what?)
As a separate matter (which long predates that edit), I'm not sure it's NPOV to use the loaded term "socialized medicine" without qualification in the first paragraph (at least in the US, it's a term used primarily by opponents of such a system, as noted on the Socialized medicine page). The Wednesday Island 14:46, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
It has a pro big buisness insurance company slant as if written primarily by the sellers of Health Insurance and without much consideration towards the 40million plus people in the United States who have no more access to health care above what they might get in an impoverished country like Mexico. The article needs to defend the rights of all citizens to Health Care, rather than having a bias and implying that its as good for the rich in a country to have superior health care than for most people to have access to it. This writer feels it would be best for modernized countries to make laws that make it illegal for companies to make money off the misery, pain and suffering of others. Companies who often refuse to pay claims as things are. This article needs a rewrite or side article relating what it feels like to be uninsured person in a rich country. -- merlinus 21:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
It really boggles my mind to see how someone can sit on a high horse and act like 41+ MILLION PEOPLE don't matter because they fall into a "percentage" of only 14+ percent so therefore, THEY DON'T MATTER, SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? <Let the bleeding hearts pay for them> This statement alone makes me sick. If our country would have used this same formula when electing a president, we wouldn't be in the situation we're in now. Who will ever know if it could be better but it's a certain, it couldn't possibly be worse. Someone needs to stop and think about individuals instead of percentages. If we used HALF of the money we've spent on this revenge "war" on health care, that 41 million people could have health care. Why are the citizens of Iraq more important than the citizens of The USA? Oh, right, the oil. I forgot. I must be a bleeding heart. My concerns are more for my fellow man than a barrel of oil. And don't forget about those FAT contracts Halliburton gets out of the deal for rebuilding everything we spent ALL of our Defense Funds BLOWING UP ! < shock and awe > I'm definitely in shock and in awe of the "percentage" of people who support this tactic of greed. But don't forget, KARMA is a MOFO!!! Big Johnson By the way, when I say "revenge war" I'm NOT refering to 9/11 because that would be a war against Osama Binladen. This war is just revenge for the first president Bush against Sadam Hussein and now that he's dead, the present president Bush doesn't know WHAT to do from this point forward so all he can do now is attack his own country with propaganda. Again, KARMA is going to be rough on him.
My family and I are part of the 41 million without healthcare. My mom, who is recently divorced and raising my two sisters on her own, cannot afford the monthly cost of healthcare for the entire family. Yesterday night, my youngest sister took too much of her medicine because she didn't know any better. While we sat on the phone with poison control, we all worried about the costs of taking her to the emergency room - without health insurance, the cost would be astronomical. Fortunately, it did not come down to that, but even after that emergency, we still know that we cannot afford the monthly cost of health insurance for the entire family, unless we wanted to give up our electricity, something we struggle to pay every month. If there were some form of universal health care, it would be far easier for us, but there is not, so we continue to live without healthcare and hope that an emergency does not arise. (May 14, 2007)
Nbauman, I'm aware of the limitations of COBRA. I also know if you transfer from COBRA to a Blue Cross plan, your preexisting conditions CANNOT be held against you if you do not let there be any lapse in coverage from COBRA to Blue Cross.
Since you're so interested in Canada, a new article in City Journal would seem to shred some of your notions about Canadian healthcare. Here is the intro graph: "Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment. But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada."
The link is http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_3_canadian_healthcare.html
Just as Canadians, fed up with the severe problems of their system, are moving toward a market solution, unschooled, ignorant, or leftwing Americans move toward socialism.
Read the article and see if it makes a dent. Simplemines 09:51, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems to be that single payer and Universal health care are very seperate things and should not be merge.
It is posible to have a Single payer system that is not universal and it is possible to have a Universal system that has multiple payers.
I think that merging these two topics whould only make it harder to seperate the two different ideas and might make it harder for readers to tell the difference between these two ideas. 72.228.90.129 19:04, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I have added a neutrality icon to this page - the section on universal coverage in the United States cites examples in other countries that are not backed up with sources, true examples or figures. I also added links to tables dealing with life expectancy and infannt mortality rates among nations, as published by the CIA World Factbook online, found here. Dmodlin71 11:02, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Also, the statements pertaining to states enforcing monopolies on state-funded healthcare services should be deleted, unless they can be backed up with verifiable references. Dmodlin71 11:06, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Does anybody have a source for a definition of "Universal health care"? As far as I could tell, the source cited, Massachusetts Nursing Association. "Single Payer Health Care: A Nurses Guide to Single Payer Reform.", does not have a definition. Nbauman 20:05, 17 February 2007 (UTC)
For a definition of Universal health Care please visit http://www.euro.who.int/observatory/Glossary/TopPage?phrase=U
which states in summary, that Universal Health Insurance provides health care coverage to the entire population (100%)
"Universal Health Insurance Core definition: A national plan providing health insurance or services to all citizens, or to all residents. Source: Getzen, 1997 Example/s: Ninety-five percent of the population was covered in 1997, but it was not until a law was passed in 1999 providing universal health insurance that the entire population was covered. "
204.174.219.3 19:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I erased the the part that stipulated a requirement to pay. Although the definition cited above refers to Universal health Insurance and not care, I think it is more than obvious that the concept of universal coverage requires everyone to be covered and not everyone to pay. Of course, universal coverage is often implemented with an obligation to insure (and pay) for those who can, but for universal coverage inability to pay cannot be a reason for exclusion. Jonas78 23:35, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
My objection to the definition is that it doesn't distinguish between the universal right to be treated for necessary healthcare and a system that provides universal a universal system of paying for healthcare that is a system, rather than a patchwork of mandates that apply to doctors, hospitals, and so on, to shift the costs of required care to them so they will force the government and charities to pay for required coverage.
In the US, doctors and hospitals are required to provide all necessary care to preserve life regardess of ability to pay. And public hospitals are required to treat all patients who show up and need care. So, while the US doesn't have a system of universal healthcare payment, it does have a requirement for universal healthcare if you can get through the rationing that not having the means to pay erect. Mulp 18:52, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
This article is really bad right now. It provides no good information, has many unsourced and POV statements, and it glances over the topic in favor of playing up emotions. It needs to have less emotion and more information. As it stands, it reads like something off a short website instead of an encyclopedic article. Topics that should be included could include things like how countries implement care, what restrictions there are, and possibly political or social response to the topic if done so in a neutral manner that documents support and dissent. It should also not be presented as a list of opinions as the last two sections are, because they run into the same problem of merely glancing at the topic and offering no information beyond talking points. Rebochan 13:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
I began work to correct this mess but gave up in favor of commenting here. I comment not only as a dual citizen of the USA and Canada [more than 30 years lived in each nation] but also as a provider of healthcare services in hospitals on BOTH sides of the border.
My attention to the need for HEALTHCARE REFORM began back in 1991 with the fascinating Walter Cronkite TV Documentary entitled "Borderline Medicine". Walter followed 2 cases of normal pregnancy, 2 of cancer, and 2 of cardiac bypass surgery, one on each side of the border. The subsequent effect upon American cries for UHC surpassed Cronkite's 1968 aposty concerning the winabiity of the Vietnam War, a statement that convinced LBJ not to run again. Most advocacy for UHC in the USA is tracable back to Walter's nifty film.
The worst mess on the article page is the misunderstanding that Canada has national UHC. It does not. Canada is not a republic. It is a federation of ten provinces. Each province has its own government-regulated HC insurance plan. Services covered in Manitoba [which has universal state-operated automobile insurance!] are not the same as services covered in Newfoundland, and so forth. The federal government now provides only Guidelines for the provincial systems. Two decades ago it had purse string power over them by Federal Grants, but those days are now over.
Second, Americans presume that UHC in Canada was implemented under the reign of Left Wing governments. This holds true ONLY for the system implemented in Saskatchewan back in 1949 -and man is THAT a story to be told some day in Wikipedia! But it was the late 50s to early 60s federal CONSERVATIVES that brought UHC from sea to sea. But not a single, national scheme, such as Britain has.
Universal Health care is barely understood by persons who already have it, and dreadfully misunderstood by those who don't have it but either WANT IT or DON'T WANT IT. The former group tend to idealize UHC irationally and misunderstand what can actually be achieved. The latter group defame UHC irationally and misunderstand that it has nothing to do with Karl Marx.
The name of the game is the label one succeeds in imposing upon the facts. Canada does not have a single-payer heathcare system. That term was never used in the lively debate before adopting this kind of healthcare delivery. Canadians did not WANT a nation where the rich would live and the poor would die. The ethical aim of UHC is to ameliorate the biological connection between health and wealth, also between health and social class or rank. The most impressive researcher into this human condition remains British professor of epidemiology and public health, Sir Michael Marmot. Dr. Marmot was also the 2002 winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Look him up on the I'net.
Across six decades, a conclusion I have reached is as follows. The system used by a nation or society to distribute health care among its members is that society's answer to the question: Why have a society in the first place? At bottom, different HC delivery systems provide varying degrees of opportunity not to individuals, but to DNA units in our H. sapien gene pool.
Trylon 04:24, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Good points, Trylon. If you write you comments up, get them published even as an op ed, then I or someone can cite it. As the article is covering a term of art in political framing, I don't think any article can be anything but a hash. I think the article should be reduced significantly to focus on the political use of the political slogans, like "Universal Healthcare" because the words are intentionally vague and shifting meanings. Mulp 19:08, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Apart from the list of countries with UHC, this article bearly mentions any actual UHC systems.
Also, the primary focus of the article should not be a debate on the *worth* of UHC, taking place in a country that doesnt have it. surely the article should focus on UHC as it actually exists in countries where it actually exits?! The article should define what is it, the historical development of the concept and historical attempts at implementing it, describe where and how it is implemented in specific terms in the contempory context, philosophical underpinnings, etc, etc. There is lots that could be discussed other than its good, no its evil, ad infinitum. After that is done then you could have a section on particular pros and cons, etc. But as usual on wikipedia, you come to find out dome iformation and yo just get an argument. aussietiger 05:47, 6 April 2007 (UTC)
It's a false statement to claim that medical insurance is subject to market failure in an article about Universal Health Care. Health care is the market failure, single payer and hybrid models are responses to that market failure. Medical insurance is consumption smoothing. Milton Friedman opening and often asserted that one of the biggest issues with the current system in the US is that without medical insurance and without access to medical care is synonymous. Medical insurance is subject to adverse selection, medical care isn't. When you're sick, you want medical care. Access to medical care likewise is something everyone wants. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by DJFLuFFKiNS ( talk • contribs) 12:51, 25 April 2007 (UTC).
This section needs to be reworked by someone with access to Economic literature and not educated guessing. As an example, there are four standard market failures put forward in relation to the workings of private health care markets (Following Arrow: externalities, returns to scale, supply-side restrictions and asymetric information (-> adverse selection, moral hazard). They cause ressources in health care to be allocated inefficiently. Thats is the rationale for state intervention and regulation. Universal health care addresses these issues, but it does not magically solve them, it produces problems of its own. Thats why most European countries actually have neither socialized medicine nor private health care markets, but in very different ways have tried to achieve "quasi-markets"... A good overview is given by Ch.17: Healthcare, in Connolly and Munro, Economics of the Public Sector, 1999. I am not a native English speaker, so I will abstain from making any major edits. Jonas78 00:01, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
Is there a userbox to indicate a user's support for universal health care? Wooyi Talk, Editor review 04:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)
I know the text included the woolly phrase '....are among many countries that have various types of universal health care systems.', but the map actually shows more than are listed. Why are other countries, notably the PRC, not listed? If it is because no reference can be found, why is it still on the map? Is it OK to have something on an image without references, but not OK to have text without references?
Davidmaxwaterman
05:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
This is a good page, mainly because it's got anything on it at all. I've made changes to the structure, however, to simplify it. Here are the main ones:
Can I also have thoughts on whether the arguments for/against should be slashed a bit, possibly removed? It's pretty mundane when the first "argument" for health care is "health care is a right" and the first argument against health care is "health care is not a right". Arguments usually require the word "because", and I'm afraid it rather sounds like something you might see on Fox news at the moment. There is also a distinct lack of facts, and the opinions of right wing think tanks, like the Cato Institute certainly don't count. It's also a "debate" so far as I know, that only exists in the United States, so I'm not sure how relevant it is. As I say, what does everyone think? Wik idea 08:17, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
I've been looking at all the pages around these topics and I want to propose a merger between this page and the general Health care page. This one is better, but the other has a more appropriate name. This page is quite details, covers economics and politics, plus references to other countries. So I suggest the content there be added in the appropriate place here, and that Universal health care redirects to the Health care title. Wik idea 09:10, 22 May 2007 (UTC)
It would be helpful to know on which reference this map bases. Personally, I think the classification of some countries are disputable, especially for Switzerland. In my opinion Switzerland has universal health care at least with respect to the definition in the first sentence. Hermes Agathos 16:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Also, why is China colored on the map? The article gives no indication that China has a universal healthcare system.
The current format is strange and clearly an artefact of the merger/demerger. Could we perhaps simply go back to the last version before the merge, and then clean up? The 31 May version seemed pretty good.-- Gregalton 10:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)
We now have most of this document already included in health care so we might as well erase that part from this article as we should follow DRY. I am in favor of keeping a seperate article for universal health care, but I also feel that much of the previous content is more appropriate for the Health care article. The lack of consensus is for a complete merge, but I think there is a consensus for the merger of much of the material. If there are any major objections to this then speak now.-- Jorfer 05:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm opposed to BalancedPolitics.org being listed as a neutral source on this issue (or any issue, for that matter). The name of the website gives the impression that it's neutral, but every article on the website is written by the same person, a person named Joe Messerli, who admits to having a conservative or libertarian perspective on most issues. Not surprisingly, most of the statements he makes about UHC are from that perspective. Many of the statements he makes are also unsupported opinions, such as: "There isn't a single government agency or division that runs efficiently", "Profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity have always led to greater cost control and effectiveness", "Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility", "Patients aren't likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.", and "Government-mandated procedures will likely reduce doctor flexibility and lead to poor patient care." In his explanations of these statements he cites no studies or statistics. Anyway, I think the link to this website should either be removed from the page or at the very least it should be labeled as a conservative/libertarian-leaning site, as opposed to a site that's "neutral". AnomyBC 02:03, 26 July 2007 (UTC)
Kborer, I challenge the text in that graphic.
Where is your reliable source WP:RS to support your claim that "The availability of health care to a population is independent of the system used"?
Where is there a system with private financing, and universal care? Nbauman 19:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)
These sections seem to very overly concerned with the US health system which ís not universal and therefore does not really have a place in this article. For example the term "single payer" is mentioned in both sections, but it is a term entirely born out of that current debate in the US.
Surely this article should describe what is meant by Universal Health Care and how it has been implemented in different places around the world. The rest of the article seems to do that very well but these two sections seem out of place with that. For this reason I am proposing the deletion of these two sections. I am sure the information in them can be obtained via the section on United States and related articles with about US health care such as Health care in the United States and single-payer health care.-- Tom 10:18, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I think an appropriate synonym for hybrid would be "everything else". And it is noteworthy that the article does not describe a single so called "hybrid system", it only describes the UK and Canada in some detail. And I don`t want to say its wrong, but stating that Germany moved from private insurance to a hybrid sytem kind of leaves me clueless. When? What is meant by that? What do you define as private insurance? What literally translates as the "private insurance system" in Germany is not a free market system. Jonas78 11:56, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
It is a basic differentiation between universal health care systems; anything more would overwhelm the article. Germany's system has basic universal health care coverage, but people can pick up any extra insurance from the private market. This is what is meant by a hybrid system.-- Jorfer 22:43, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
You say its a basic differentiation, but I would insist it is not a very clear one. In the single payer article you will find this definition for single payer: "An approach to health care financing with only one source of money for paying health care providers. The scope may be national (the Canadian System), state-wide, or community-based. The payer may be a governmental unit or other entity such as an insurance company." by the National Medical Library. First, the term refers to the financing of health care. A logical opposition should then also be defined in terms of the financing of a system. I guess thats why 'multi-payer' system is often used as an opposition, and that would only say that those sytems have not a single centralized source of finance. What you refer to in the German case is more a Two-tier health care system, according to the article Canada is the only Western country not to have one, and its not an opposition to single-payer. When you insist that Germany is a hybrid system, because you can pick up extra insurance from the private market, I would ask you, isn´t that the case in Britain, too? Jonas78 01:15, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The two sections seem to imply that there are two different funding models for UHC. The two models being either "Single Payer" insurance or a "hybrid" system being some mix of "Single Payer" legislated compulsory insurance plus a "free market system" (paid for either by private medical insurance or pay-as-you-go private purchase). But all over the world, UHC has been been achieved with a hybrid model. There seem to me to be two main exceptions to the hybrid model. One being UK, which does not have a compulsory insurance scheme, and the other being Canada, which has legislated against private practice in areas where there is Single Payer coverage.
And here comes the confusions.
Many of the external links and references in this article discuss the US and Canadian models, partly one suspects because of the predominance of the English language and the strong cultural and historical links between the US on one side where the debate is raging, and the UK and Canada on the other. But the UK and Canadian sysyems are not representative systems and they are often misrepresented.
I have strayed a bit from the intended focus on the removal of the sections. But my main point is that if the sections on Single Payer and Hybrid (and potentially that horrid word "socialized medicine") are to remain in the article, they should be seen from a proper global perspective. Can I suggest we now discuss the issues I have raised and how they can be incorprated to improve the article-- Tom 09:20, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
The lack of European examples trouble me. Either we should have more examples of implementations (probably with smaller sections for the UK and Canada) or we should drop the examples altogether. I prefer to keep them in myself. -- Tom 12:00, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Right, because nobody ever generalizes or sensationalizes the US health care system. Nobody ever says horror stories are typical. Uh huh.-- Rotten 04:19, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
And incidentally, while the polls I've seen do indicate that US voters want change (and it needs big changes indeed), they usually rate their own personal health care very high. And single payer initiatives failed in the two most pinko kooky moonbat states (my state of MA and Oregon). You've been swallowing too much "Guardian" bullshit, my friend. -- Rotten 04:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Theres no section about criticisms of this type of system, other than the pages as external links? I've been known to not notice things in front of me, so please dont flame me if I'm just not seeing the section lol.
Sicewa 02:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
There's a contradiction between two wikipedia articles I thought I'd point out.
In this article, it says "According to Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, a senior lecturer in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington in Seattle, Canadians do better by every health care measure. According to a World Health Organization report published in 2003, life expectancy at birth in Canada is 79.8 years, versus 77.3 in the U.S[19]."
However, the article "Canadian and American Health Care Systems Compared" states "n 2007, Gordon H. Guyatt et al. conducted a meta-analysis, or systematic review, of all studies that compared health outcomes for similar conditions in Canada and the U.S., in Open Medicine, an open-access peer-reviewed Canadian medical journal. They concluded, "Available studies suggest that health outcomes may be superior in patients cared for in Canada versus the United States, but differences are not consistent." Guyatt identified 38 studies addressing conditions including cancer, coronary artery disease, chronic medical illnesses and surgical procedures. Of 10 studies with the strongest statistical validity, 5 favoured Canada, 2 favoured the United States, and 3 were equivalent or mixed. Of 28 weaker studies, 9 favoured Canada, 3 favoured the United States, and 16 were equivalent or mixed. Overall, results for mortality favoured Canada with a 5% advantage, but the results were weak and varied. The only consistent pattern was that Canadian patients fared better in kidney failure"
I'm far from an expert of either the topic of health care or encyclopedia articles, so I leave it to the jury to decide.
-Dev —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.104.167.64 ( talk) 03:55, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
A topic that should be discussed.
No, just like a car, it has to be provided to you by someone with the expertise to build them. I would assert that one does not have a right to health care, but a right to the health they already possess. Although it is sad when someone can't afford medical care, why should I force someone else to pay for it? I'll offer up my own money for charity, but how do you justify forcing people to hand over their own money to pay for something they won't get? 70.134.57.120 03:51, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
Bulgaria is indicated on the map as a country with no universal health care system, while the article says
which is right? 62.123.127.15 15:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)
Universal health care contrasts to the systems like health care in the United States or South Africa, though South Africa is one of the many countries attempting health care reform.[1]
The last part of this sentence is misleading and must be removed. South Africa is not "attempting health care reform." It has been a reality since 1995. -- Formeat 07:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)
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BetacommandBot 01:43, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Serbia also has a publicly funded health care system similar to other European countries. It is also not coloured on the map. -- 142.201.5.100 22:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I've made a few edits to clean up this article a bit - I'll explain each.
1 - I've started the article with a definition of Universal healthcare. Call me crazy, but it's probably good practice to begin an encyclopedia article with a definition of what you're talking about. Hack and slash away, but the keys of universal healthcare is government control and subsidy, (either of finances or finances and services) and guarenteed access. Can anyone show me a uhc system that doesn't have government subsidy?
2 - The opening paragraph in implementation is really weak - It says that universal health care is guaranteed access at a reasonable cost (that's part of the definition). Most countries implement uhc thru taxation and legislation (actually, all of them do, and again part of the definition). I've cut that paragraph in order to get the meat of this section, how uhc is implemented in different countries. Maybe we could say something about the history of implementation, how long they take, which types of countries attempt uhc, etc.
3 - in the US implementation section, changed a few things - the US is not the only country w/o uhc (as per the definition). A few other miscellenous things. There is some clean up necessary in the Canada section, but I'm no expert on the canadian system.
4 - Austrialia commentary is pretty unsourced. I'm really no expert on Australia, so I have to defer. Can someone help source that?
5 - The financial outcomes compared section is unsourced and misleading and it's time that that goes. There is no research cited showing a causative link between healthcare system and lifespan, infant mortality rate, etc. Look up causation vs. association. Don't you think that exercise, diet, and genetics have more to do with life span than who payed your doctor bill? A financial outcomes section should be how much healthcare services were received vs. how much those services cost and the quality of those services.
6 - The US debate at the end probably doesn't belongs in the 'Healthcare in the United States' article. I won't change it, but it should probably go. Nmcclana 06:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah - you cleaned up the intro, looks nicer than my first attempt. In the intro I wanted to define Universal healthcare. I think there are two basic types, 1 - where governments manage the finances, but private enterprise manage the services. 2 - where government does both. It's a moot point, but what's the NPOV description for each of those systems? And, yes, I deleted the into on implementation because I felt it was stated in the lead.
The lead needs some love - it is not a concise overview, nor does it provide context, or summarize points. I'll take a stab at trying to clean that up.
Also, I do disagree with one edit - in universal health care systems - Administrators & legislators DO determine coverage terms. Generally, the legislation only provides the framework, it doesn't define every drug in the formulary, how much each procedure will cost, etc. I'll pull up citations on that. Nmcclana 02:44, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
In the section on "Debate in the United States" it says that Government-controlled health care would lead to a decrease in patient flexibility. The cited article does indeed say that. But the argument put forward in the cited article says that some treatments may fall outside the universal system and that people may have to pay for treatments not covered by the national program. I do not see how that is "reduced flexibility". If the universal system does not cover certain treatment, then people will have the same choice they had before the introduction of the universal system. That is, they can insure themselves for the potential need for such treatments or they can pay for the treatment out of pocket. It does not look inflexible to me. -- Tom ( talk) 13:08, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Except if you're in Canada where you can't get treatment outside of the state run system. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 15:34, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. But Canada is quite an exception in this regard and it is not per se a reason for saying UHC reduces patient flexibilty.-- Tom ( talk) 18:31, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Rightly or wrongly, we have a section called Debate in the US. At the moment this is subbed with "arguments of proponents" and "arguments of opponents".
IMHO an argument is based on facts and logic. Is it right to include arguments that are not supported by objective facts and logic? I see many arguments based on prejudices rather than facts and a lot of false logic. For instance, it is claimed that government is always less efficient than the private sector and that government involvement in health would therefore be inefficient. But where is the evidence that government is always inefficient? It seems to me to be a prejudicial claim. And citations based on one event are extrapolated to all potential futures quite unfairly. Because at one time there were detected failings in privacy maintenance of Medicare records, ergo, it is claimed UHC in the USA will lead to loss of patient privacy. It is like arguing that because the brakes failed on my car, all cars should have their brakes removed because brakes don't work. These are nonesense arguments and IMHO should have no place in WP.-- Tom ( talk) 13:17, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, if you want an example of how a centralized system is less efficient then the private sector then compare Cuba in 1959 with modern communist Cuba or the "economic" performance of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe under communism with their performance since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Notwithstanding, we don't add criticisms here based on your notions of fairness. Stop eliminating sourced material and POV pushing. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 15:43, 21 November 2007 (UTC)
Re: Effect of regulation on costs in "for profit" and "not for profit". I deleted an edit by Freedomwarrior because the inference cannot be made. Regulation may or may not affect "for profit" and "not for profit" institutions differently but the answer is I suspect we do not know because the article you cite (not peer reviewed I assume) actually does not examine this issue. You may think that regulation is synonomous with UHC but it does not have to be. Regulation is a different thing altogether. On the other hand, I do not agree with the implicit assumption in the original text you edited that UHC is equated only with "not for profit" hospitals. The findings seem to me to be an argument for turning "for profit" hospitals into "not for profit" ones.-- Tom ( talk) 13:23, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Tom, I don't know whether you've studied economics or not, but here's a very basic proposition for you: regulation tends to increase the costs of providing a service in "for profit" (free market or semi-free market) and "not for profit" (socialized) institutions, since it tends to add to the overhead costs and even the cost of treatment itself.
I understand that regulation is not necessarily synonymous with universal health care; you are mistaken, however, if you think that the two things are not at all related, since regulation can be one of the means to arrive at so-called universal health care--i.e. the current incarnation of Hillarycare relies almost exclusively on regulation to arrive at socialized medicine.
As for the rest, I don't understand what your problem/concern is. The blurb on behalf of socialized medicine attacks so-called "for-profit" medicine and the costs that are associated with it. As in other articles, I am modifying the text to reflect the fact that the United States has a substantial regulatory system (that increases costs). This is a statement of fact. Unless you don't think that the United States' system is sufficiently regulated... Freedomwarrior ( talk) 16:57, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I said that regulations tend to increase the costs of providing a service, not that they always increase costs. Indeed, there are some regulations that can be beneficial, as your example suggests. Nonetheless, as the Cato Institute paper can attest, the regulations that health care providers in the United States face, increase costs without delivering the benefits of so-called universal health care. That is not, however, why I am insisting that we add the short comment on the level of regulation in the United States. While I don't dispute the contention that nearly all health care systems in the world are fairly heavily regulated, neither the United States nor any country with a substantial level of regulation can be used as a stand in for "for profit," because of the substantial level of regulation which undermines the profit motive. If health care in the United States--or any country with a similar level of regulation--is to be used as a stand in for anything, it should be used to reflect the horrors of having a mixed, semi-socialized system. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 17:50, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Gregalton, I have not said that socialized medicine is the solution. While I wasn't arguing that "health care in the US is so heavily regulated that it is akin to the costs borne by a system of universal health care, but without the benefits," I did agree with that contention because a semi-socialized system offers few of the benefits of a socialized system (for instance, the supposed universal coverage, etc.)--which is what you stated--and few of the benefits of a free market system--which I should've mentioned earlier--, while generating unnecessary costs. My personal preference would be for the United States to adopt a fully laissez-faire health care system.
By using "so-called" to describe most universal health care systems, I am simply emphasizing that they do not provide the supposed benefit of universal coverage, because there are individuals who have to resort to coverage outside of the national health service to obtain treatment. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 19:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Tom, this is the version I am proposing:
"For-profit healthcare in states with significant levels of regulation has been shown to have higher expenses and worse results than not for profit care in such countries."
My edit does not change the meaning of the original text, it simply makes it clear to readers that we are talking about "for profit" health care providers in countries with significant levels of regulation. All that I am doing is making sure that readers know full well what the nature of the system that is being criticized. As far as I'm know, there's nothing inappropriate with that--i.e. my edit does not violate wikipedia regulations.
By the way, if you want to blame the "high rate of coronary by-pass operations in the US or those MRI scans" on someone, you'd do well to blame it on frivolous malpractice suits--i.e. regulations--, not the market. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 20:24, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
One of the claims made on behalf of universal health care is that it is superior to "for profit" medicine. I read that as a claim that "universal health care" is superior to the kind of health care that would be available in a country with a laissez-faire system, which is non-sense because there are no (or few) countries with such a system. All that I am doing is amending the claim to reflect the fact that it is criticizing "for profit" medicine in a country with a semi-socialized system. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 20:38, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
But if you say that you would be changing the meaning. The original text had the clear and simple message that not-for-profit hospitals have lower overheads and better health outcomes than the for-profit medicine (irrespective of regulation). Now you are tying that claim to regulation is somehow influential in this. But there is no evidence for it.
Also many universal systems DO have for-profit providers and they are still universal. I am not sure what your problem is with understanding these simple matters. Your answers seems to be saying either "universal systems are not universal" and that "for "profit medicine" in the US is actually "socialized medicine" or even worse. All those positions seem to be POV to me and not mainstream. -- Tom ( talk) 20:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
Tom, you are straying from the text. Here it is the proposed text:
"For-profit healthcare *in states with significant levels of regulation* has been shown to have higher expenses and worse results than *not for profit care in such countries*."
Here is the original: "For-profit healthcare has been shown to have higher expenses and worse results"
The sole difference between the two versions is that the modified text reflects the fact that the studies were conducted in a country with a significant level of regulation (something that you are not disputing) while the original text ignores this. Your claim that I am somehow engaging in original research is non-sense. My addition is a statement of fact, nothing more. Whether or not regulations in the United States affects costs (which I think it does), is irrelevant and besides the point (I've only discussed it on this page because you raised it, not because I care). The addition of "in states with significant levels of regulation" does not amount to a claim that "regulation is somehow influential in [increasing costs]," as you seem to believe. Indeed, it doesn't amount to anything more than a clarification on the nature of the United States' system. How this "obscures" the previous editor's edit is incomprehensible to me.
Your countless attempts to distort and fudge the facts on free medicine, while indicative of how weak the argument for socialized medicine is, are unacceptable. Stop making inane objections to the inclusion of sourced material, which does not alter the meaning of the text. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 21:17, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
I have lived in those countries, and from my own experience, I know that they don't have universal health care. This is how it works: If you are an employee, your employer is required by law to pay for your health insurance. This contribution is a percentage of your income, but the insurance cover is the same for everybody. If you are not employed, and claim unemployment benefit or a pension from the state, the authority that pays your unemployment benefit (the employment center) is required to pay for your health insurance.
HOWEVER: Health insurance is not provided by the state, but by the "Krankenkassen" (semi-private insurance companies). If you are neither employed by a company nor claiming unemployment benefit nor a state pension, you are NOT automatically insured. You must either pay for insurance out of your own pocket (around €350 /month) or go without insurance - ie. pay the FULL cost of your medical treatment out of your own pocket. The problem is that NOT everybody has the right to claim unemployment benefits and pensions. Self-employed people, unemployed university graduates, young people who have worked for less than a year, formerly self-employed pensioners, the long-term unemployed, immigrants, expats and a number of other groups are not eligible for them. In principle, this system resembles the USA (where only certain groups are eligible for insurance by government) more than the UK (where every citizen is automatically insured by the NHS). In practice, the number of people without health insurance in Germany and Austria is lower than in the US, but ONLY because millions of Germans and Austrians (who are more risk averse than Americans) choose to spend those €350, not because the state is providing insurance for them. The number of uninsured is still significant. In Germany alone 300,000-400,000 people are estimated to be uninsured [8]. That is about 0.4% of the population.
In other words, health care is not a right in Austria and Germany, and "universal health care" does not exist in the way defined in this article: "government mandated programs intended to ensure that all citizens, and sometimes permanent residents, of a governmental region have access to most types of health care". How is this relevant to this article? Firstly, I would like to remove the claim that "The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system". If America can be considered to be lacking universal health care, then so can Germany. Even in a practical sense: The American government spends just as much on healthcare as the German government, namely 7% of the GPD (source: WHO). And when 0.4% of Germans are uninsured, we can hardly speak of anything even approaching "universal". Secondly, I would like to remove Germany and Austria from the map of countries that have universal health care. Cambrasa ( talk) 13:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC) Cambrasa ( talk) 13:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
I believe the balancedpolitics.org site link [9] does not meet the standards for a reference. I can see the other side of the argument, that this section is about the debate, but this does not appear to meet even minimal standards for notability. (In general, the links in this section need to be cleaned up). Any objection to my removing them (with reasons)?-- Gregalton ( talk) 05:23, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
These are politically charged words and neither is part of the essential definition of "Universal Health Care." As far as I can tell there is no 'universally' accepted definition of 'Universal Health Care.' Perhaps this article should be retitled, "Universal Health Care According To John Edwards." Many would say that it isn't really 'Universal Health Care' unless it's a single payer system payed for out of tax revenues which automatically covers every citizen. Other than that, though, what we're talking about is 'universally available' health care.
This is a weird topic. If "universal" means every single person is covered (the more standard definition) then much of this article isn't about Universal Health Care. Neither 'mandates' nor 'compulsory insurance' accomplishes that. The only sensible interpretation of "Universal" in the context of this article is 'universally available,' but even that is weird.
We have laws today that mandate emergency room services for anyone who walks in the door--it's just a matter of who pays. Maybe the article title should be changed to "Universal Health Insurance?"
But let's keep the politics out of it. We can't be defining UHC as requiring mandates or compulsory insurance--those definitions are both incorrect and way too politically biased. Mystylplx ( talk) 00:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
A key point of UHC in most (all?) countries is that patients cannot be refused emergency care (or indeed almost any care, once they have the resources), even if it is extremely expensive; a good example being a liver transplant. Duty of care in the US requires docs to treat in all viable cases, but financial restrictions don't allow it. My experience with transplant surgery in the US meant I saw patients regularly turned away due to lack of insurance - these patients sometimes died as a result. Transplants can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and so patients could not reasonably be expected to pay for them if their insurance fails. This could not occur in Ireland, UK, France etc. While it would have been original research to add this to the article, yesterday CNN reported on an interesting story ( http://edition.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/conditions/12/21/teen.liver.transplant.ap/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail) which documented such a refusal by a US insurance company.
My question is: can this now be added as a proposition point in the Yea vs. Nay debate on UHC?
Perhaps it could be used as a source for the second-last point on the prop side:
The profit motive adversely affects the motives of healthcare. Because of medical underwriting, which is designed to mitigate risk for insurance providers, applicants with pre-existing conditions, some of them minor, are denied coverage or prevented from obtaining health insurance at a reasonable cost. Health insurance companies have greater profits if fewer medical procedures are actually performed, so agents are pressured to deny necessary and sometimes life-saving procedures to help the bottom line.[citation needed]
Also, it would be great to get more sources for the opposition side too - still a lot of citations needed.
Cheers! Conor ( talk) 12:50, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
We've had some back and forth edits on the language describing the U.S. system, based on the IOM report. The website says that it's the "only wealthy, industrialized nation" to lack universal health care, but the body of the report qualifies it a bit differently. It says that the U.S. is "one of the few industrialized nations" to lack universal health care [10]. It isn't clear to me what the criteria is for "wealthy" in this context. It strikes me that the second characterization is better sourced, and makes the critical point adequately. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.145.79.247 ( talk) 17:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)
i'm afraid i'm unclear on how this is legitimate. the section 'debate in the united states' has three arguments in favor of UHC that are referenced to italian language sources. this makes no sense at all. the debate in the united states isn't put forth by italian language sites. this strikes me as little more than POV pushing under the guise of being additions to the pro/con section on the US debate. Anastrophe ( talk) 16:47, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
The 'debate in the united states' is also done using comparison with countries with different systems: you can check this for most of the points raised. Unfortunately, the references to prove what happens in other countries may be more easily available in other countries' languages.
Of course we all are encouraged to find and add better references for each topic cited in the article.
The debate about Universal health care is not limited to US, so we should also consider to change the section title.
An other problem with references: the arguments used in the debate are listed as "common arguments forwarded by the ...", however, for no argument is given a reference that it is common forwarded indeed, and not used by a few people only. The references are about the argument itself, and not about being common.
Laurusnobilis ( talk) 17:21, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
There is a debate about UHC in the rest of the world (some quick found references: [11] [12]); let's omit the discussion about whether it is "notable" or not, however it is less prominent than in US.
Most of the argument used are not specific to US, for instance, whether health is a right, and "Unequal access and health disparities still exist in universal health care systems".
My proposal is to change the section name from "Debate in the United States" to something without reference to US, and "common arguments ..." into "arguments ...". Of course, only relevant (in the sense of the wikipedia policy) argument should be listed.
Each country in European union has a different health care system, hence is possible that you don't find English references for most of the Europen union health care systems.
Laurusnobilis ( talk) 19:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not really clear why there is a section in this article about the specific debate in the United States at all. If discussion about that debate belongs anywhere in WP it belongs in the article Health care in the United States with a simple cross reference to that additional material in the United States section of the current article. This article is about Universal health care and the US does not have Universal health care. End of story. Its not the only country without UHC and it would be very dull to represent every country's issues here.-- Tom ( talk) 21:20, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
US does not have Universal health care, yes, but in US there is a debate about adopting it.
The debate about advantages or disadvantages of UHC is general and not specific to US, so it makes sense to have this section, and to have it here Laurusnobilis ( talk) 23:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
the following quote from the NEJM was added recently: "Although there are laws prohibiting or curtailing private health care in some provinces, they can be changed". while an accurate quote, it tends to misrepresent the reality. the legislative process is long, slow, and laborious. the fact that this sentence attempts to soften is this reality: There are laws prohibiting or curtailing private healthcare in some canadian provinces. it would be better to cite the reality, not NEJM's speculations. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
This reads like it was written by advocates or activists for universal health care in the United States, with the intention of making the rest of the world look like nirvana, for the purpose of promoting a particular kind of universal health care in the United States, a kind perhaps not available in the countries listed as having universal health care in the article.
I live in Japan, which is listed, without qualification, as having universal health care. Here's what Japan actually has: Either your employer administers a health care plan, or you buy it from the city. Only larger employers have their own plans. They cost maybe $350 per month. Cities charge maybe $500 per month. These costs will vary with location. You get a health insurance card when you join. With that card 70 percent of your costs are covered. If you don't work for a large employer who deducts the payments and you don't pay the city's fee, you don't get health care. If you don't have the 30 percent co-payment, you don't get health care and you don't get medicine.
Is this what most Americans understand to be universal health care? In the U.S. if you don't buy health insurance, you don't get health care. In Japan if you don't buy the city's health insurance, you don't get health care. (There is some free health care: most cities offer a free annual exam (blood and urine, chest X-ray, electrocardiogram, weight and height), and there is some 100 percent care for the disabled in some cities.)
I wonder how many of the other countries "with universal health care" in the list don't really have universal health care when examined in detail.
Japan's system basically works because the population is mostly homogeneous, there is a large middle class and fewer poor than in the U.S., and people just pay for health insurance. They put priority on paying for the insurance, over buying a car or eating out or having another kid or whatever. Those who don't pay are in the same boat as the U.S.
Don't get me wrong: I love the Japanese system. I get to choose my doctors, mostly showing up without an appointment. I can just go to another doctor for the same problem if one doctor's treatment doesn't satisfy me. There are no records or cross-checking to prevent that.
Me again. Those sources are not correct.
Practically speaking, most employers will deduct your health insurance payment, and you don't have a lot of choice about it, I suppose. But I know expats working for Japanese employers who have talked them into not deducting the payment when they told them they had purchased their own insurance from overseas providers.
If you are self employed, unemployed, or work for a small company (I have experienced all three of those states), you simply do not have to pay for health insurance, and nobody tracks you down and asks you about it. The only way to get insurance is to hop on the subway to the ward office and apply for it and pay for it, about 50,000 yen a month (it varies by city, this was Nerima Ward in Tokyo circa 2004). If you don't pay for insurance, you don't get a card. If you don't have a card, one of two things happens (I have personal experience with both): (1) The doctor refuses to treat you, or (2) they ask for 100 percent payment in cash, rather than the normal 30 percent copayment. If you have a card an forget it, same thing. They either ask you to go get the card, or they take a deposit of 100 percent of the cost pending your return with the card, at which point they refund 70 percent. And, by the way, if you have a card and don't have the 30 percent copayment? No treatment.
Now mind you, practically speaking, a very large percentage of the Japanese population has insurance compared to the United States. Your statement "virtually the whole population is covered" is probably true. It's true because virtually the whole population pays insurance premiums, monthly, with "cash-money," not because it's just magically there from the government.
And those who don't and who get sick, usually get their bills paid by relatives (who may be pissed off at them, but this is kept within the family and dealt with outside the public system).
As for the statement on the Japanese Web site to the effect that "everybody is required to join," I suspect that is similar to the "requirement" that you pay for public television. Since there is no sanction, many people don't pay their NHK bill. Even if you may be in some sense "required" to buy insurance, there is no followup, audit, investigation, census, central record keeping or whatever by the city to check on this. And if you don't have it, you don't get care.
So in summation, there is a single nationwide system to which doctors bill for medical care (actually, two parallel systems, as I explained in my first post), but it's not a universal entitlement, but rather a monthly premium billed, cost controlled insurance plan that is the same for everybody, without the requirement of medical checks and the like to qualify. But still, you need to pay your 30,000 to 45,000 yen monthly premium.
My problem is that Japan is being used here as implicit support for the idea that there should be a zero-premium entitlement style universal health plan in the United States ("because _everyone else has it_"). That is not what Japan has, and I suspect if a country-by-country, ground-level check by informed expats living in other countries in the list here were made, there may be similar discrepancies.
The acid test: does a homeless person living in a cardboard box on the west exit of Shinjuku station get health care? No. He gets nothing. In a Canadian style system would that person get health care? My understanding is yes. So you can call these two systems universal health care, but they are different. If you apply Canada to the U.S., everybody gets care, but if you applied Japan, you'd get a huge number of people not paying their three or four hundred dollars, and things might not be so different than now. The cost differences between a Canadian and a Japanese style health care system would be pretty massively different in the U.S., I'd reckon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.216.99.100 ( talk) 11:20, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
"particularly since you are not disputing the fact that you are simply trying to bully your opinion onto this and other articles" "However, if you insist on foisting your particular opinion on readers, then you are engaging in a violation of the rules." "They do not justify your efforts to transform this article into a US bashing session."
"I have so far refused to play the little game of finding citations, because I've thought it contemptible to have to do such a thing" "Very simply, there is no reason why your opinion should get to trump mine." "I am not going to argue about which of the different possible tests for determining whether a country is "wealthy" and "industrialized" is best, because 1) I don't have the time to do so and 2) I don't need to."
-- Jorfer ( talk) 17:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Freedomwarrior: I have reinstated this. I see this as the intent of the schemes that are implemented. Tax and subsidy are POV. I don't think anyone in the UK thinks their health care is subsidized, except to the extend that some people get out more than they pay in and vice versa... but that happens in insurance. You don't talk about motor insurance being subsidized. Its insurance. It just happens that the government is the insurer. You will not find a UK official web site referring to health taxes or health subsidies... its your POV.-- Tom ( talk) 20:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
DoopDoop: I see you have a strikingly common view of things with Freedomwarrior. Would you by any chance be related? You have again deleted the phrase population insures itself. I know that you may think that this is just semantics, but most UHC is based on a form of National Health Insurance passed by legislation in which the population collective insures itself against paying medical costs at the point of need. The 1948 British system was set up under a scheme known as "National Insurance", and the 2006 Dutch law Zorgverzekeringwet translates as "Health Insurance Law". The Canada Health Act begins with a preamble "An Act relating to cash contributions by Canada and relating to criteria and conditions in respect of insured health services' and extended health care services". They are not called health tax and health subsidy laws. As I say above in another section, no Briton thinks that health care is subsidized because they know it is collectively paid for by contributions paid for by contributions over a lifetime and neither do Finns where I live now. And I suspect Canadians think they are insured too. What gives you the right to declare that this isn't a form of collective insurance? -- Tom ( talk) 02:30, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
Is there a reason that every single anti-UHC point in the For/Against section is derived from documents from the Cato Institute? I know they have different contributors, but it seems a bit limiting... What's the WP view? Is one Institute's POV on a subject enough to cite it? I don't believe so.
-- Conor 22:56, 30 July 2007 (UTC)
Conor is correct. The issue is whether citing only one source is valid under wiki guidelines or not for referencening data. A position is silly or ridiculous or not is merely opinion based. The content (in my opinion) of this entire article would better serve the public if it controlled the opinionated material. This is suppose to be a ENCYCLOPEDIA article, not a debate forum. There are other cites and links, even within wikipedia, for that, such as here. Not in the main article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.107.246.50 ( talk) 18:45, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems that Publicly-funded health care covers nothing except universal health care. -- Doopdoop ( talk) 22:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
So far the only difference presented is in the details of USA health care system. But those details are covered in both articles. Also please explain why there is no Universal vehicle insurance page (only vehicle insurance page). -- Doopdoop ( talk) 23:56, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
(undenting) I've made an attempt to meld the two different versions of the lead into something of a compromise version. I think the WHO statistics bear out the point that public funding is not the only mechanism used to achieve universal health care, and that mixed public-private funding is fairly typical. I will add references to the WHO statistics in each of the country areas cited in this article as a way of illustrating the blend of funding (and varied degrees of "public") that go into universal health care systems around the world. -- Sfmammamia ( talk) 22:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm going to be bold and put an auto-archiver to work here. Any objections welcome...-- Gregalton ( talk) 12:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
The article currently states that "Universal healthcare is unfair to healthy tax payers because it gives people who smoke, drink, do drugs, and eat unhealthily unfair benefits"
This is not entirely true. Across most of Europe, tobacco and alchohol are taxed heavily to both discourage behavior that leads to ill-health and to ensure that users (who do indeed add to the burden of health care costs) meet a fairer share of the cost. In the UK, a general agreement between the NHS and the motor insurance industry ensures that the NHS receives a sum of money each year from all motor insurers to meet the health care costs caused by motor accidents. This agreement avoids the need for every claim to be contested, keeps the lawyers out and costs down. It does however mean that motorists are making extra contributions towards heath care through their insurance premiums. There has even been talk of taxing "junk food" but politicians are wary to do so because there are rather too many value judgements that would never reach consensus.-- Tom ( talk) 23:38, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Why are there virtually no mentions of the healthcare systems in Europe?
England is about the worst funded and lowest quality health care n Europe. Some countries like Germany have a system on mandatory private insurance. Some countries like France has a completely private care part of the system but with fixed payouts by a single payer stabilizing the system. Why is non of this explained?
Do we even have articles on these systems? If no, just ask someone to translate them from the French and German wikipedia's, then summarize them here.
What have you people been doing?!? JeffBurdges ( talk) 12:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Jeff: You say that England has about the lowest quality care in Europe. An interesting claim. I'd be interested to know where you get that information from because if its true it represents a big change since the last major assessment was done by the WHO. Perhaps you can tell us here or at National Health Service or Healthcare in the United Kingdom. Its even more remarkable because the UK has increased spending from about 6.7 per cent of GDP on health in 1997 (the date of the stats below) to about 8.1 per cent today, so other countries must have been doing phenomenally well too.
The WHO in 1997 ranked the UK in 18th place out of 191 in a World league table of performance attainment ahead of 21 other European countries. These include Ireland(19th), Switzerland(20th), Belgium(21st), Sweden(23rd), Cyrpus(24th), Germany(25th), Finland(31st), Denmark(34th), Solvenia(38th), Croatia (43rd), Poland(50th), Slovakia(62nd), Hungary(66th), Lithuania(73rd), Ukraine,(79th),FYR Macedonia(89th), Romania(99th), Bulgaria(102nd), Latvia(105th), Yugoslavia(106th), and finally Russia at (130th). All of which are European countries. And as far as I recall, the UK health service has improved greatly since these stats were taken with huge capital and people investment and grealty decreased wait times.
In overall attainment the UK was, in 1997 ranked 9th out of 191 countries, with an index score of 91.6 and only 6 European countries bettered that. France managed 91.9. The worst country scored 35.7. The USA scored a very respectable 91.1 and was placed 15th, just behind Germany. -- Tom ( talk) 18:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
I deleted the following paragraph recently added, because almost all of it is outdated, poorly or unsourced, or contradicts reliable sources:
Universal health care in Canada has caused some problems for the country's funding. On December 24, 1999 the Toronto Star reported "The Ontario government is bailing out deficit ridden hospitals to the tune of $196 million." In the same report the paper also stated a shortage in the number of doctors. Canada's health care has also been seen as inferior to private health care, such as in the United States. The British Columbia Medical Association released a paper criticizing this and calling for "the establishment of maximum wait times or 'care guarantees' for various medical procedures" and saying "patients not helped within the guaranteed time frame should be able to seek care out of province - at no cost to themselves." This is because it's criminal for citizens to pay out of pocket for private health care. The only other two countries with these laws are North Korea and Cuba. [3]
Here are the problems I see with the paragraph:
A more balanced and better sourced critique of Canadian healthcare might fit in this article. But those are contained in the other articles I noted. -- Sfmammamia ( talk) 15:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I just thought I ought to point out that quality of cites given on the "left" side supporting universal health appear to be of much higher quality than those on the right, which ironically enough depends more on nonscientific, right wing/libertarian sources like the CATO Institute. (This somehow seems to be a familiar pattern....)
Also I came across this detailed, pro-universal health care "position paper" paper by the American College of Physicians titled Achieving a High-Performance Health Care System with Universal Access: What the United States Can Learn from Other Countries ( PDF shortcut). This appears to be a good ref to add for multiple cites in the article. FYI. -BC aka Callmebc ( talk) 14:48, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
The Century Foundation, Century Foundation Press, 2/7/2008]
I've removed the external link to JaaJoe.com Just Another Average Joe twice. According to Whois, the domain was just registered 3 months ago. It's not a notable source. The main page has a Google page rank of 0. The article is not professionally written and the author does not even use a full name, just "Cisco." It's also been spammed by the same IP 24.243.31.156 ( talk) on the Cardiopulmonary resuscitation page. -- Lifeguard Emeritus ( talk) 09:50, 20 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the claim that "most care is subsidized by taxpayers" is inherently wrong.
Most health care in universal systems is in fact paid for the users of the system. In a big pot kind of way the government ensures that the very healthy subsidize the needs of the very sick, the very wealthy subidize the health care costs of the very poor, and the economically active subsidize the economically inactive (e.g. children, retired people and the unemployed). But the vast majority of users are not permanently in those extremes and will pay in over time broadly what they get out (either through tax or compulsory insurance). Indeed, most people pass through all of these phases at some point in their lifetime so subsidy is probably not the right word. For most of us, its a way to even out the burden of these factors over a lifetime.
Health care in The Netherlands is only 5% funded by government and is a universal system. So it is mosly not subsidized by taxpayers. I think most Britons do not think their health care is subidized either, even though they get it for free when they need it. The NHS is not government charity. In the long run we pay for it through taxes. At the extremes, if we are lucky, we pay our taxes and never fall ill. But we don't begrudge that because because we know we could just as easily have been very seriously ill. Britons (and I presume the Dutch) vitually never have to worry about health care costs whatever their health or financial status. -- Tom ( talk) 10:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
5%? No way. It's been more like 60%, with an increasing shift to more private insurance under recent reforms. England has 85% public funding, Germany about 75%, Canada is 70%,the US has about 45%....Netherlands is far less a market-oriented system than the US, until recent reforms the extent to which the private/public funding split will need to wash-out after the changes are fully in effect. Numerous OECD sources and Holland's government documents clear this up, but I don't have the figures right at hand. JackWikiSTP ( talk) 17:17, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
Here we go again. Let me repeat what I said on the talk page on socialized medicine:
There is no such thing as an objective definition for the terms "industrialized" or "wealthy." The questions that one would ask to determine whether a country is either of those two things is open to individual interpretation. For instance, you might say that measuring GDP per capita is a more effective approach to determine whether a country is wealthy, while I might argue that looking at the aggregate GDP is better. Who's right? Well, that's a question of opinion. Another example, what's the appropriate level of "industrialization" for a country to be considered "industrialized?" Indeed, what does it mean for a country to be "industrialized"? Is it possible for a country to be "un-industrialzied"? Again, those are all matters of opinion. At what point is a country objectively "wealthy"? Finally, explain why some "industrialized" countries with high GDPs (i.e. wealthy by some people's standards) that don't have universal health care, like China or India, shouldn't be counted alongside the US. It is a matter of opinion, and it should be reflected as such. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 05:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not going to argue about which of the different possible tests for determining whether a country is "wealthy" and "industrialized" is best, because 1) I don't have the time to do so and 2) I don't need to. By conceding that "there is no absolute standard for the word industrialized," you made my point for me. My changes simply reflect that there are some who believe that the United States it not the only country without some form of universal health care and others who do. All that you're saying is that you (and other editors) have a right to pass on your opinions as facts to this article's readers, which constitutes a violation of Wikipedia rules. Therefore, I once again insist that we edit the text to reflect an impartial statement of the facts in the form of the compromise put forth by Gregalton on the Socialized Medicine talk page. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 07:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
These "standardized" definitions are normative in nature. I have so far refused to play the little game of finding citations, because I've thought it contemptible to have to do such a thing (particularly since you are not disputing the fact that you are simply trying to bully your opinion onto this and other articles). But if you need a source for the very obvious claim that there is not an objective definition of wealth, you can turn to Van den Bossche's treatise on WTO law or a random journal on economics.
There is no requirement that you provide an objective definition of what constitutes an "industrialized" or "wealthy" country, if you recognize that those claims are not factual, but rather normative. That does not violate Wikipedia rules. (And that is why I did not press the issue on the socialized medicine page further) However, if you insist on foisting your particular opinion on readers, then you are engaging in a violation of the rules. Very simply, there is no reason why your opinion should get to trump mine. As I've said before, an opinion is an opinion is an opinion. Your sources are worthless (other than to demonstrate that there are some who are of the opinion that the US is the only wealthy country without some form or universal health care). They do not justify your efforts to transform this article into a US bashing session.
Ohh, by the way....not "every" definition of "wealthy" countries relies on per capita levels of GDP as you seem to proclaim from on high. Broadly speaking, those in the security studies field are prone to looking at a country's aggregate wealth alongside per capita GDP, etc. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 08:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
-- Jorfer ( talk) 17:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Let's try this Sfmammamia: WP:ASF. According to wikipedia rules, "Assert facts, including facts about opinions—but do not assert the opinions themselves." Therefore, [[User:Sfmammamia|Sfmammamia], Wikpiedia does have a rule against including normative statements (i.e. opinions) as factual statements, because such comments tend to amount to nothing more than blatant POV pushing (as is the case with the comment in dispute). Sfmammamia, there's a reason that editors are not allowed to list their own particular opinions as facts, as Gregalton insists. For instance, (this may sound familiar since it's what Gregalton is doing) I could go to any number of websites that share my own particular bias and just find links with whatever biased claim I want to insert, and foist it on editors. Ultimately, the article would become nothing more than a blog on behalf of a certain position (which is what some editors seem to insist on). If you are allowed to pass of your normative claims as fact, you have no justification for excluding me from including something as fact provided I have a source that makes the same claim (no matter how inane it happens to be). I could even include things like, "the proletarian revolution is inevitable" in the article on communism (since Marx makes that claim). See the problem? A source that reflects a normative opinion cannot transform that opinion into facts (or else, you're going to have a massive edit war on your hands when other editors decide to turn their opinions into facts).
Sfmammamia, I provided a source at the top of the thread, which undermines Gregalton's claim to having some form of an absolute standard for. I do not have an on-line version (since it's a treatist on WTO law), however, I can provide page number, etc. if you insist on it. If there is an absolute standard Gregalton, you've demurred on demonstrating it; therefore, I would invite you to either "enlighten" me or refrain from wasting my time with your silly claims about non-existent "objective" standards. The claim must be modified to demonstrate that it is not a factual (positive claim) but rather a normative claim (an opinion). Failure to do so means that this article is violating wikipedia rules.
By the way, Gregalton, unless you have a Masters or a PhD in the relevant field you should be a bit more modest and stop making enormous categorical claims about what is and isn't said in a field... Freedomwarrior ( talk) 18:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC) a The term industrialized is recognized as a mostly objective term with subjectivity only really near the cutoff mark due to the lack of numerical guidelines, but there are recognized taxonomical guidelines (some of which I outlined above) that all indicate China and India do not fall into this category. A limited amount of subjectivity does not make a term subjective. You may want to look at the article Developed country. You will notice that there is a high level of consistency among the lists. You will see that by any standard China and India are not industrialized countries.-- Jorfer ( talk) 18:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Jorfer, I have to laugh at your claim that "A limited amount of subjectivity does not make a term subjective." What does it make it then? Objective? That most editors are consistent in their opinions here and elsewhere reflects their willingness to accept opinions on the basis of authority, it does not reflect a set of objective facts. If a statement is subjective, as the one that you are defending, I don't understand why there is such strong opposition to reflecting the fact that it is the opinion of a group of like-minded individuals. Can someone please explain this to me? Are you scared that readers will suddenly realize that it's just a cheap shot at the US?
In describing the WTO process for determining whether a country is "developed" or "not developed," Peter Van de Bossche says that countries are left to determine in what categories their level of development puts them in (this is in the 2005 version of his case book on The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization, the exact text is found at page 101). The determination is based on a subjective self-assessment on the part of the state. Very simply, the organization has recognized what I've been arguing: there is no objective means for categorizing a country into any of these groups. These are all subjective valuations, which vary from group-to-group and academic-to-academic.
Having said that, I have not objection to the change that you are proposing Sfmammamia, since it would reflect that it is a claim being made by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science and not an objective pronouncement. Freedomwarrior ( talk) 19:13, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Martin van Rijn: lf you want people to have more responsibility and more choice to get better care, and not have a top-down decision-making process you need two very important rules. One is: guarantee good quality care. The Health lnspection ensures that quality is guaranteed in the Netherlands. And you need a market referee who ensures that negotiations between insurers and care providers are honest. To avoid creating monopolies and power blocks.
And this from http://www.europeanvoice.com/downloads/NL_New_Health_Insurance_System.pdf about the insurance regulator and the Netherlands Care Authority...
Registration with the Supervisory Board for Health Care Insurance (CTZ) Health care insurance companies must additionally be registered with the CTZ to allow supervision of the services they provide under the Health Insurance Act and to qualify for payments from the equalisation fund.
The choice for private insurance that assigns greater responsibilities to insurers who are allowed to make a profit makes it inappropriate for the government to supervise the effectiveness of the way health insurance is operated. Therefore, the main objective in overseeing lawful performance of the new-style health insurance is for the government to ascertain whether the care insurer is fulfilling its obligation to provided insured persons with the services to which they are entitled under the Health Insurance Act. The regulator that exercises this supervision, the Supervisory Board for Health Care Insurance, CTZ, has various duties and powers under which it:
with the law;
performance of its regulatory role;
Tasks of the Netherlands Care Authority The Netherlands Care Authority exists to: · regulate the markets for providing, insuring and procuring care. This task extends to making and monitoring markets as well as regulating them. The authority regulates tariffs and services. It also promotes the transparency of markets and the availability of information about choices available to consumers; · oversee lawful implementation by care insurers of the provisions of the Health Insurance Act, including the care and acceptance obligations and the prohibition of premium differentiations; · oversee lawful and effective performance of the provisions of the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act by care insurers, care offices and the central office that administers the Exceptional Medical Expenses Act.
Principal new powers of the authority
The most important new power held by the Netherlands Care Authority is to impose specific obligations on parties with significant market power. It has been given the power to do this in order to cultivate the care procurement market in fields where free pricing exists. The authority further has powers to lay down general rules for care providers and care insurers to increase the transparency of the market for consumers. The authority will also be given the power to publish transparency information if care providers and care insurers fail to do so.
Essentially it is all about transparency.-- Tom ( talk) 19:49, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
"That most editors are consistent in their opinions here and elsewhere reflects their willingness to accept opinions on the basis of authority, it does not reflect a set of objective facts."
"I don't understand why there is such strong opposition to reflecting the fact that it is the opinion of a group of like-minded individuals. Can someone please explain this to me? Are you scared that readers will suddenly realize that it's just a cheap shot at the US?"
"Very simply, the organization has recognized what I've been arguing: there is no objective means for categorizing a country into any of these groups. These are all subjective valuations, which vary from group-to-group and academic-to-academic."
This debate about the meaning of “industrialized" and "wealthy" is pointless and off-the-mark for this topic.
What people mean--and what is said in most quarters--is a reference to the OECD nations, often referred to as the “Western democracies” and also "industrialized democracies." The point is that the reference is to the OECD nations, all (most? to avoid that debate) of which meet the standard of industrial and wealthy. Referring to the OECD nations is an objective standard. Though there are now some OECD nations that aren’t considered under the traditional "Western Democracy" label. I'll --or some else can--try to work out appropriate language, which would include the link to OECD's page, but I think everyone is referring to the same thing--including most readers who generally understand the given labels--OECD exempted. I see “wealthy" and 'industrialized" as more subjective and less normative, but this topic isn't the place to get into those debates. JackWikiSTP ( talk) 17:34, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I have added examples to the debate section numerous times. They have been sourced. The sources are reputable sources (not just CATO-like think tanks.) They complied with NPOV. They were relevant to the topic at hand. They did not erase any other entries on the article. They have been removed shortly after (ie less than 5 minutes.) Why are they being removed? I know I am supposed to assume good faith, but the fact that they are consistently removed from the "con" side of the argument makes me wonder if not everyone is willing to have this article contain all relevant information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.214.17.17 ( talk) 00:41, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I am proposing that the article Socialized medicine be merged into Universal health care. I see these two articles as being broadly about the exact same issue, where socialized medicine only focuses on the more negative political connotations in the American political landscape. However, Wikipedia is not US-centric. Rather, it should represent a worldwide view of the subject. The purpose of providing the reader with the most accurate, verifiable, and neutral exposition of health care programs is not best achieved by the division of this subject into two separate articles. ⟳ausa کui × 02:55, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
The traditional meaning of Socialism as practice and ideology--based on Marx's definition--is when the means of production (land, labor, capital) are in public hands. (There are other definitions of socialism dating back to the 19th century, but the means of production issue is always key). A component of that is public funding. However, I want to point out to an above comment, mere public funding does not constitute being "socialist" (to refer to a specific sector rather than an overall system or philosophy) when it is not accompanied by public ownership of the means of production. Were the “socialist" label to be applied as a definition to any publicly-funded activity, then the entirety of government spending would be defined as socialist. While some (e.g. some libertarians) might hold that position, it is only an infinitesimal number in the US--or elsewhere in the West. The public provision of health care services--with publicly owned facilities--is the mark of “socialist,” e.g. Britain, though they do have some private services and spending. No Western nation has either 100% private or public funding.
More generally, "universal" refers to access, not to an economic model, e.g. socialist, capitalist. The access and economic model concepts are distinct, as previously noted. Hence, discussing "universal" as a separate topic is appropriate. I think the major details of other nations is too much baggage and takes up too much real estate to the detriment of clarity on the "universal" concept; the level of emphasis on practices diminishes the value of explicating the concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by JackWikiSTP ( talk • contribs) 18:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
The US specific external links were recently deleted, and then that deletion was reverted. I'd like to suggest that they should go. Two arguments were put forward for keeping them: 1) that the US is part of the world, and 2) that they lead to useful information. Both of these comments are absolutely true. but the section of this article on the US links to the more detailed article on Health care reform in the United States, which would seem a much more appropriate place for links dealing specifically with the debate in the US. Moving a lot of the US-specific clutter out of the more general world articles on health care, health reform and heal care systems was one of the primary motivations for creating that article in the first place. Segregating them there still allows people to find the information, while making articles like this one less US-centric. EastTN ( talk) 13:55, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
The image Image:Medicare-brand.png is used in this article under a claim of fair use, but it does not have an adequate explanation for why it meets the requirements for such images when used here. In particular, for each page the image is used on, it must have an explanation linking to that page which explains why it needs to be used on that page. Please check
This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. -- 04:27, 20 September 2008 (UTC)
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042072.htm Removing this is blatant censorship and bias at it's worst. YVNP ( talk) 20:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
Second paragraph: "Universal health care systems require government involvement, typically in the forms of enacting legislation, mandates and regulation."
Shouldn't it be pointed out that the United States Constitution does not grant the Federal Government the authority, or the power, to regulate, mandate or legislate this issue. A Constitutional Amendment would be required before enacting Universal Health Care in the United States. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.205.71.86 ( talk) 15:34, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
User: Matamoros moved "Universal health care" to "Socialized health care" without any discussion in Talk that I can find -- in fact, Matamoros hasn't done anything else on this article or discussed anything in Talk.
We had a long discussion about a proposal that Socialized medicine be merged into Universal health care, and the consensus was against it, because we decided that socialized health care was not the same as universal health care.
I think it is incorrect to rename this article to "Socialized health care" because there are many universal health care systems that are not socialist. I think the change should be reversed.
What is Matamoros' reason for changing it? What do others think? Nbauman ( talk) 17:27, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
Why would someone replace this whole article with the word "penis"? Dumaka ( talk) 17:17, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
The article states "All treatment is free with the exception of charges for prescriptions". This is correct but may not be completely clear. What this means in affect is that, irrespective of the cost of the drug needed, the dosage (or, for example, the number of pills dispensed), the cost of the prescription is the same. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.70.28 ( talk) 10:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)
here's some images of an NHS hospitals in Scotland that could be used (New Beatson, Glasgow):
http://www.hbs.org.uk/hospitals/pictures/Beatson%20-%20new.jpg
http://www.nhsgg.org.uk/content/mediaassets/locations/beatson300.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by Alpha-ZX ( talk • contribs) 20:35, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Read the article on the police. Is this article about how the police are 'implemented' in every country in the world and which countries don't have police? I'm no expert on state run/mandated healthcare, but I'd love to know about the different types of implementation, history of implementation, a link to an article 'arguements for state healthcare' and 'arguements against state healthcare'. But 3/4'th's of this article is dedicated to a checklist of countries. Another big chunk is dedicated to the argument around implementation of universal health care in the united states.
Though the templates are a step forward! If we could only get more encyclopedic content in there.-- 70.143.64.199 ( talk) 06:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Editors may wish to be aware that I have today placed a blocking request on User:LincolnStfor perisitently vilolating the spirit of editorial co-operation, for demonstrating bias in his edits, for depleting the usefulness of WP articles on health care to its readers and for making changes so rapidly that they seem to be planned aforethought and dumped on the editing community. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Blocking_request__User:LincolnSt for examples and to express your thoughts if you have any.-- Hauskalainen ( talk) 08:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Someone obviously vandalized this site. Under US section, vulgar words have been inserted. Unsure of how to fix, but seeing this adds to the notion that this site is too biased to use as a reference source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.115.57.83 ( talk) 17:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
In the section on the United States, there is strong Bias towards a pro- Universal Healthcare. The article is practically glorifying it. I dispute the neutrality of this section. Statistics for the other side are provided but not for the negative side. And the cons of the pro-con section are the most general arguments I have heard against universal health care, not to mention the number of pros out weigh the cons.
69.145.140.178 (
talk)
05:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
The argument is certainly made in this article for universal health care in the US, most blatantly in the section where it is mentioned that "conservatives can support this because..." then mentions the lower cost spent per person by the government. People disregard the facts that American private health care dollars fund the lion's share of the R&D in the world health care system, and that American companies that shelter income in European countries for a lower tax burden provide much of the funding for health care overseas. I'm not against the idea, but I think if you want to make an argument on a page like this, you need to present legitimate arguments, not impassioned rants. My vote is for removing the "pro-con" approach to the writing and just present facts. Bradbutler01 ( talk) 13:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Bismarck's "Sozialgetzgebung" created universial health care in Germany in 1883. So the NHS part is revisionist crap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.223.47 ( talk) 10:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
http://fadelibrary.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/healthcare-across-eu-borders-a-safe-framework/ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/ldeucom/30/3004.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7484198.stm
Please add a chapter called European Union, this is very important, this will totally change the concept of Universal Health Care in the European Union countries.
Please say it in the way you want, but basically, if you are a European you can go any country you want in the European Union and use the health care system of the other country, your government has to pay the bill. All the information is on the website. Lets say that I am Italian and the hospital in my region do not provide the care I need, I can fly to France or Spain get the help I need there and pay 0 zero cero, THE iTALIAN GOVERMENT HAS TO SEND THE CHECK TO THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT. This was a rule by the European Court of Justice, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.104.87 ( talk) 23:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)
It is a known fact that Universal Health Care is implemented in Taiwan. This article lacks information relating to such. http://www.nhi.gov.tw/english/index.asp
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
163.15.178.13 (
talk)
10:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
China to provide universal health care by 2020
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZ2J6GxXq5H15q6GophdmYSPrCPQD97CVB0O1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.104.87 ( talk) 20:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)
Could you guys please write an article regarding this issue:
In Peru the Universal health Care access become a right, the government will merge the 3 Peruvian health institutions(military, Social Security and Emergency for the poor(kinda medicaid)). Peru will be the 4th real Universal Health Care provider in the Americas, after Canada, Brazil and Cuba. Just to let you guys know, Peru is pro Free trade and business, we have free trade with US, Canada, China, Japan, Australia, South Korea Chile, Indonesia , European Union, EFTA, and looking for one with Australia and Russia. So Peru is not what you will call a closed economy or socialist(US way of naming communists).
Law on Health Insurance published today http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=mSOVQJu0hxY=
Law on Health Insurance marks major reform http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=rsbFfAZYpMU=
I hope this information works, I am pro Universal health care provided by the US government modeling Canada's. Say bye bye to the greedy private providers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.106.14.170 ( talk) 16:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
Since conecepts of Universal Healthcare include such VASTLY different methodologies as:
1) Universal Health INSURANCE, where the medical system is basically privatized, but everyone in the country/region has health Insurance supervised by the national govt. (example: Canada)
2) Universal Health CARE, where most of the medical staff and facilities are government-run, with privatized services available within the government system if the government subcontracts to them, and where those desiring more specialized/luxurious services can still go through private doctors and facilities if they pay separately for them supplementally (example: England)
3) Other variations of the above where the goverment is involved in assuring that everyone has health insurance AND/OR healthcare services available to them fully or to to some degree via their government
4) Variations in inclusion or exclusion of prescriptions and how they are handled is also a major distinguishing issue
I would sincerely like to see a better introductory paragraph written to help people understand the MAJOR conceptual differences! It is very upsetting that the American public, especially, constantly equates Universal Health Insurance PROPOSALS as being the equivalent of Universal government-hired/run health CARE practitioners/facilities, simply because noone is pointing out THAT THESE ARE 2 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONCEPTS involved under the topic of Universal Healthcare!
Under nationalized health CARE, your physician works for the government, while under nationalized health INSURANCE, those who fall under that system are usually seeing doctors or going to hospitals that are still in the private business sector - it is their insurance policy that is nationalized.
Could whoever is working on making this section a worthwhile reference for the public on this highly controversial topic - and someone who can write more knowledgably and briefly than myself (sorry about my wordiness) please itemize (as I did in the first paragraph) or in some other way highlight these distinctions, modifying the current first paragraph which presently just casually covers these MAJOR difference in a sort of run-on sentence that minimalizes the importance of recognizing the varying concepts involved in Nationalized Care versus Nationalized Insurance.
Thanks to all who've contributed so far with a goal of making this section useful to all. CentristViewpoint ( talk) 02:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)CentristViewpoint
I think those of you who are commenting are getting too much into the analysis of the usage of these systems - my point is that there should be some type of highlighting/education of the public via Wikipedia so that they EASILY learn from the article that, in fact, there is a MAJOR difference between nationalized health CARE versus nationalized health INSURANCE, and it is not REQUIRED that a government have nationalized health services at the same time if it has nationalized health insurance - example: Medicare is a nationalized INSURANCE plan where patients see doctors/hospitals in the private sector. I just think that since national health insurance (like Medicare) does NOT require one to also have government-run hospitals/physicians, READERS SHOULD BE HELPED TO UNDERSTAND THIS DISTINCTION - any analysis of whether or not either system works totally aside. CentristViewpoint ( talk) 16:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)CentristViewpoint
As someone who supports Universal Health Insurance yet is at least undecided about Universal Health Care, I would like to agree heartily with CentristViewpoint. well, first, I will agree with some others and say that YES, the philosophy behind the two is similar. Both programs assert that healthcare is a basic human right. So, you are right in that respect. But the execution is very different. To put it this way, Cuba is a country with Universal Health Care; that is, the government is entirely in charge of health care, which is indeed more typical of a heavily socialist/communist type of option. On the other hand, Universal Health Insurance is an option that basically fits any ideology to the right of communism and to the left of libertarianism. I think the difference is absolutely critical and should be delineated. Please, someone with the knowledge/time to do so, go ahead and inform us.
This article is about UHC which is different from UHI or socialized medicine though both may be routes to achieving UHC. On the issue of insurance, UHI does not really fit the libertarian view as I think libertarians would argue that they should have the right NOT to have health insurance if they don't want it. The opposing view is that a right to life can depend on the right to access to funding for that care (medical or otherwise) that could be very very expensive and the best way to guarantee that right is thru insurance. A child born without limbs for example will need care for the rest of its life. All forms of insurance are about pooling risk.
The argument then becomes what is the best form of insurance. The best pools are large ones where the risks of the high costs of the few are borne by the many. The largest possible pool for a given nation is the pool of the national population where everyone is IN. That is what UHI is.
The problem with sub-optimal sized pools (as in private insurance models) is that low risk people seek to be outside and high risk people seek to be inside making the risk sharing uneven. Worse still, if the insurance is not mutual, there is a further group to consider and that is the people seeking to profit from the managing of the insurance pools. This makes insurers try to keep healthy people in the pool and kick the unhealthy ones out. It is the behavior of the insurers in doing this which is totally against the whole concept of insurance (which is to pool risk by having everyone pay in when they are well so that if they get sick if and when they fall ill and can have access to funding regardless of how much they have paid in). This has led to the private health insurers finding themselves as the most despised element in America's health care system.
UHI avoids this whole problem of picking and choosing to gain the system (whether by the insured or the insurer) by ensuring through law that everyone is IN the scheme from the point of their conception until the day they die. The downside of a national insurance plan is that coverage is the same for everyone. The child of the gas station attendant gets the same access to care as the child of an investment banker or even the president. Some find that an attractive proposition and others may not. There is no right or wrong way and the best solution is for the people to use democratic action to determine how to proceed (whether by government activity as insurance pool manager or by regulating the insurance market or by some combination of the two). In the UK it is possible for the investment banker to buy better care if he is prepared to pay much more. But the investment banker cannot opt out of the national funding pool. This relieves the state of the cost of his expensive treatment even though it breaks the rule on equity of access. In fact though, fewer than one percent of people in the UK actively insure themselves in the private market though a higher number do also have private options thru their employer (about 6 or 7 per cent I believe). I hope that helps to explain it better.-- Hauskalainen ( talk) 08:31, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
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