Talk:Health policy

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Slee384.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 23:13, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Requested move
move to health care politics, and create redirect at healthcare politics. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 01:13, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems that a lot of confusion is caused regarding different health care systems due to the many overlapping concepts and terminology. For example, a lot of the discussion on this page is not for or against universal health care, but rather the various implementation of it. Is anyone opposed to moving this article to health care politics so that everything can be clearly laid out? Kborer 15:14, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Support idea but 'Oppose name in favor of Healthcare politics. 205.157.110.11 03:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Do you have a reason or a reference? I looked at a few web pages and the two word version seems more common.  Of course, we will link both to the same article.  Kborer 20:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

REJECT: This article is WP:fork as is Health care reform for the most part. Both articles issues should be on the topic of Health Csre in the United States port should be merged with Health care in the United Staes as the loigical place for such msterial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hauskalainen (talk • contribs) 21:58, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

this change seems irrelevant
"In a recent televised CBC report, research scientiest Evangelos Michelakis of the University of Alberta Department of Medicine, has shown that dichloroacetate (DCA) causes regression in several cancers, including lung, breast and brain tumors.[18]. What the CBC written report fails mention, is that the DCA compound is not patented or owned by any pharmaceutical company, and, therefore, would likely be an inexpensive drug to administer, Michelakis added. The ironic bad news, is that while DCA is not patented, Michelakis is concerned that it may be difficult to find funding from private investors to test DCA in clinical trials. The search for cancer cures obviously shows that the current drives to find a cancer cure, are highly motivated by corporate profit cures. [19] This highlights a significant problem with Canada's half public, half private system, often mistakenly referred to as a 'public system' and that is that because it is not a true public system, and profit is a prime motivational factor, simple treatments, simple cures, simple preventative measures are not at the core of the systems motivations."

Similar verbiage was recently added to the "Health care in canada" page. This is interesting and controversial, but certainly not unique to Canada's health system and really has nothing to do with universal health care, which seems to be the main thrust of this page.

Respectfully submitted,

Ltyore 06:12, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, if this page was only to be about the politics of universal health care, it should not have been renamed. Relevance to universal health coverage now has nothing to do with the article. - Aagtbdfoua 16:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

NPOV in economics section
I'm not an expert, but some of the discussion in the economics section of this article does not seem to be from a NPOV, such as the following:

Even when someone does get to see a medical professional, the quality of care that the medical professional is able to provide is lower, as evidenced by the poor quality of care provided by in countries that have adopted universal health care, such as Canada and the United Kingdom.

The editor then goes on to cite a report by the American Heritage Foundation (I think), as evidence of this. Speaking from personal experience, and that of my family, the 'quality of service' provided by medical professionals in the UK is pretty good, but I cannot vouch for the country as a whole. However, using a report by a think-tank that is implacably opposed to universal health care is not much evidence either. Surely a better thing to say might be

Even when someone does get to see a medical professional, the quality of care that the medical professional is able to provide is **argued by some [citation]** to be lower.

I don't know, I'm not an expert, but it does seem biased. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Onaraighl (talk • contribs) 12:08, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Should have signed that.Onaraighl 12:09, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Definitely some serious flaws in that section. Who is citing think tank articles? I qualified one ridiculous opinion statement &mdash; individuals no more have a right to be protected from natural phenomena as the government has the power to levitate individuals in defiance of gravity, which itself is an act of nature like old age and disease &mdash; by making it clear that some David Kelley believes this. Who could possibly include this statement without making it clear that this is the opinion and thinking of David Kelley? Citing such statements is not enough. Anyway, someone really needs to work on that section to appropriately identify the pros and cons. Maybe I'll focus on it at some point. ~ Rollo44 16:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I think this article could benefit by using the structure found in Ethics of eating meat where the pros and cons are arranged clearly. ~ Rollo44 16:51, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

The section is absolute nonsense and I have deleted it. I am surprised, given the comments of previous editors, that it has stayed this long. The Cato Institute references are biased and have no place in an encyclopedia. Rationing happens in all economies. In the UK and Canada, access to healthcare is rationed according need whereas in the US it is rationed according to a person's access to funds (whether personal or collective via insurance). Health care in the UK is of a very high quality; people do not wait years to see a doctor; GPs administering primary care can be seen any time or have locums (e.g. for urgent care at home at weekends and evenings); median wait time for a non-urgent specialists appointment is less than 7 weeks; urgent cases are fast tracked and life-threatening cases are handled immediately. The section was downright misleading--Tom 16:31, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Think tanks
Hello. I'm new here, and was just doing some research on this subject...I read the article and came away with the idea that socialised medicine seems like a really bad thing, but then I looked at the sources...The article cites the Cato Institute and the American Heritage Foundation a lot. Both of those are fairly conservative think tanks and so there may be some conflict of interest there that reduces their reliability...maybe having the article say that some organizations believe this would help? I don't know. Anyway, it's just something to look at! :) ColtsWin 06:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)


 * It certainly is biased in that way. However, as long as those references are isolated to opinion sections of the article, it's fair game. Someone informed about the issues should flesh out the other point of view. This article already points out the problems with socialized medicine all too well. ~ Rollo44 05:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting tired of all these think tank references that masquerade as unbiased sources. They do not conduct scientific or unbiased studies. They are paid to think a certain way and foster preconceived ideas. Wikipedia is better than this. ~ Rollo44 23:23, 4 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I completely agree. This article as it stands now is just a punching bag for anyone interested in complaining about socialized medicine systems.  Though many of the arguments outlined in this article are valid, they are all phrased in a way which reads like propaganda, leaving no room for the "on one hand, on the other hand" arguments which any balanced article must have.  Plus the sources cited aren't just poor, they're ridiculous.  Wikipedia can most certainly do better than this. ~ Vikingviolinist 08:12, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Another agreement. This page is pretty bad. If I hadn't already studied up on this issue a lot I would come away from this thinking that socialized medicine offers poorer service with more expense, end of story. The real story simple isn't this black and white. On the economics side at least, it's obvious that the US pays far more for it's privatized system than any other country (twice as much as Canada), yet you wouldn't get that impression from reading this page. I agree that all think tank references should be removed. Too many people are subjugated by their propaganda, it has no place on wikipedia.


 * I'm not sure who made the comment above this one, but it was not me, even though I think what is said there is true. Actually I strongly disgree with Rollo44 who said that that these so called think tanks deserve any mention here because criticism is "fair game". The information these bodies put out is often demonstrably false or misleading and therefore they not a worthy source. We cannot include information from sources then deliberately bend the truth otherwise WP is distorting the truth by proxy. This article looks to me like nothing but a fork from Health care in the United States from which to air criticisms of health care reform in the USA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hauskalainen (talk • contribs) 21:46, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

WP:NPOV
I've just placed an NPOV tag at the head of the article, in addition to the already existing section-NPOV tag. The reader of this article deserves to get a caveat emptor notice. There are a number of grounds for this, including but not limited to the paragraph in "Background" which reads: "It is important to learn from health care in Canada and their experience with socializing its health care system. UnderTommy Douglas, Douglas's number one concern was the creation of Medicare. In the summer of 1962, Saskatchewan became the centre of a hard-fought struggle between the provincial government, the North American medical establishment, and the province's physicians, who brought things to a halt with a doctors' strike. The problem is that while the system became publicly funded, most services remained privately owned; half-public, and half-private. It never became a truly public system, with the doctors union, the Canadian Medical Association and the College of Physicians and Surgeons maintaining control over the system. [1] Other concerns by even some physicians is that the College discourages alternative, complimentary health care treatments. [2] The inability of consultants to critically view the system and make recommendations was based on the deceptive nature of this system." This paragraph is a blatant statement of opinion with a conclusion, stated right in the first sentence, that implies "mistates were made" by involving government in Canada's health-care system, from which, presumably, other nations such as the US ought learn from if they value their own citizens' well being and that of their nation. There are a few other things to be sure, but this paragraph really stands out. ... Kenosis 22:59, 10 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I would argue that this entire article needs to be revised or simply deleted. Even after some heavy editing it's not balanced, along with some real nose-stretchers. Let alone that most of the statements are unsourced. Anyone else have opinions? It's not like anyone even seems to be paying attention to this article, given the other articles on the subject.--Gregalton (talk) 12:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * The politics that are discussed in this article seem to reflect US politics and therefore the article is at least badly named. But because WP is not a place for arguments to be played out, I therefore tend to go along with the idea that the whole article should be scrapped. I was pleased just now to scan through earlier comments here and read that other editors share my disdain for quotes from pressure groups which have an agenda to push. They quote things as fact which are at best opinion and often downright selective and misleading. I do not think that articles sourced from pressure groups make good references in WP, even under the heading "some people argue....". --Tom (talk) 13:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Right wing propaganda
There is alot of right wing propaganda on this page. I added the POV template. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RightWingLies (talk • contribs) 23:19, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * The tag will be removed unless you provide specific (or at least semi-specific) examples. OhNo itsJamie Talk 23:24, 21 October 2010 (UTC)

Basic definition
One of the obvious shortcomings of this article was there was no basic definition of what "health policy" means. I have added one now, with attention to worldwide perspective.Guptan99 (talk) 12:31, 22 March 2011 (UTC)

I have also edited/restructed a lot of the text for neutrality of tone and more worldwide perspective. Guptan99 (talk) 12:02, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

citiation needed
Under the topic "Economics: Health care financing" the sentence "Since people perceive universal health care as free (if there is no insurance premium or co-payment), they are more likely to seek preventive care which may reduce the disease burden and overall health care costs in the long run." needs citation.

Pauly, who firstly talked about "Moral Hazard" in his paper of 1968, admits in his paper from 1983 that only minor health services like “routine physicians’ services, prescriptions, dental care and the like”, (Pauly, 1983, pp. 82–3) are extensivly consumed through issuing public insurance. As these services are highly preventive in nature I would suggest to take this as citiation - at least for the first part of the sentence.

What do you think?

Reference: Pauly, Mark V. (1983), ‘More on moral hazard’, Journal of Health Economics, 2, 81–5. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.175.243.238 (talk) 10:23, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

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Linking Individual Policy Work
It would be a hefty undertaking but worth the effort to organize a link section of actual health policy work to include introduced, passed, and unpassed health policy at the local, state, national, and international level. Many layers would be required but it would result in a more complete picture of the history of healthcare policy and resulting healthcare law, which also has its own page and would likely need to be cross pollinated.

Health policy hierarchies

World Nation State Province Municipality Health policy actions Introduced Passed Unpassed

i don’t know, just seems like it could become a great place to outline the failures and successes of health policy in a single location. RubyU235 (talk) 17:37, 31 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis - Summer Session24
— Assignment last updated by MackennaUCSD (talk) 01:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)