Talk:Healthcare in Europe/Archive 1

Health and healthcare

 * Health in Europe redirects here. We have however Health in Europe and Healthcare in Europe. Most articles are about healthcare, but are redirected to health in... - although there are exceptions. It is a mess. I suggest moving every article to healthcare in, and redirecting the health template to healtcare one. Possible the same needs to be done to other continents. Comments? PS. I suggested a RM at Requested_moves. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:40, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree. Most of the longer established articles are already titled Health care in. Some of the more recent Health in articles do not as yet contain details of health care provision in those countries but that will no doubt come in time. There should be consistency and Healthcare in or Health care in would give wider scope to describe topics related to health, including health outcomes and details of health care provision.--Hauskalainen (talk) 02:42, 1 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (Talk:Health_care/Talk:Healthcare in Europe) - Bottom line, most articles about "healthcare in a given country" are misnamed to "health in a given country". Tens if not hundreds of articles at Category:Healthcare by country and its subcategories need to be renamed from "health" to "healthcare". --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:44, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Incomplete - none of the "tens if not hundreds of articles" are tagged. JPG-GR (talk) 23:36, 30 January 2009 (UTC)
 * List of all pages whose names start "Health in" Anthony Appleyard (talk) 10:46, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is quite a lot of those, and forgive me, I don't have currently the time or will to play a bot and spend half an hour tagging them. I hope that consensus, if reached here (also discussion announced at RM, Talk:Health_care and Talk:Health) will be sufficient.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Outdated report
I stumbled along this page. Data from 2000 are MUCH outdated. Please moderators - correct them or delete the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.50.36.35 (talk) 10:59, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

This is not a very good article because of the differences within countries, much as a article "healthcare in North America" would be. User F203 (talk) 18:26, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Considering the article lists the differences between countries I don't see that as a problem. Ironholds (talk) 19:46, 13 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Health care systems here are relatively stable. I do not regard data from 2000 as being out of date. Yes, there are differences between the xountries. But there are also many similarities. I think it is worthy to examine the differences as well as the commonalities (such as shared arrangements under the EHIC program).The article should NOT be deleted.--Hauskalainen (talk) 23:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Ireland
Some services such as xrays etc are free But emergency room treatment is only free if you are referred in writing by a GP, if you walk into an emergency room injured you are charged €100 euro, IRELAND DOES NOT HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE PLEASE MODIFY THE MAP TO REMOVE US There is no public insurance system, the number of private hospitals has more than quadrupled over the last decade, there is no mandate for insurance either, about 30% of the population have neither private insurance nor a 'medical card', therefore IRELAND DOES NOT HAVE UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE. No country that charges its citizens a fee for receiving emergency room treatment can be described as having universal healthcare, I think people in the US just assume that all of Europe has it because the US does not. Most do, Ireland does not. PLEASE edit the map to reflect this, it insults those of us who's first discussion when we walk into a hospital is about signing a bill we can't pay before even seeing a doctor. (Ray, Dublin) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.93.129 (talk) 13:14, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Hi...Ireland does NOT have universal healthcare or anything close to it, we have a two - tier mixed public private system, there is no public insurance, those who have incomes below the poverty line can, after months and months of waiting for he processed application, get a 'medical card' which gives them free care including prescriptions, but thats it, everyone else has to take out private insurance.

Its not true to say "ireland doesn't have universal health care". I agree its not great, but it is 'universal' by any international definition. 'Universal' does not mean 'free at the point of need'. Yes, people who can pay, do have to pay a 100€ tax for an A&E visit - but if you don't pay, you still get care. Yes, there are waiting lists, but there are in the UK too. This is a complex issue, and very politically loaded in Ireland, and the term 'universal health care' is used by all sides of the debate here to mean different things. Wikipedia is opening itself to Irish political bias by putting a fairly misleading statement like this on the page. It would not be understood by non-Irish people. There is plenty of detail on the pages about the Irish health system. ... Seabhcan 14:06, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Bulgaria
After reviewing the information shared at This WHO report, the WP Article Universal health coverage by country and the information provided by the National Health Insurance Fund(in Bulgarian) of Bulgaria I came to the conclusion that Bulgaria, at least according to its laws and statutes, has an universal health insurance. Should this not function in practice then that's a problem of implementation, not of principal lack of universal health coverage. Since I want to avoid edit wars I've decided to post my research here first before attempting to edit the article. --dimi_z (talk) 10:18, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Misleading, inaccurate map based on unreliable ILO source
I removed the Universal health care map File:Universal_health_care.svg added by SPQRobin (talk | contribs) on April 14, 2012 because the original version of the map was misleading, inaccurate and unsourced, and because the current version of the map is misleading, inaccurate and its source is not reliable.

The original map File:Universal_health_care.svg was uploaded to Wikimedia commons on July 19, 2009 by NuclearVacuum ( talk | contribs ) did not cite a source, but was apparently based on (minus Cyprus, Georgia, Armenia, Kuwait, and Hainan, plus Crete): NuclearVacuum did not use this map in any Wikipedia article, but over two years later 81.213.226.125 (talk | contribs) added it to the Universal health care article on November 16, 2011, with the caption/legend: Nations with Universal health care systems. (July 2009) Nations with some type of universal health care system. [including all of Europe, except: Belarus, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Turkey, Cyprus, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan] Nations attempting to obtain universal health care. [Albania, India, Iran, Mexico, South Africa, Thailand, UAE, Venezuela] Health care coverage provided by the United States war funding. [Afghanistan, Iraq] Nations with no universal health care. Six months later, SPQRobin added the map to this Wikipedia article on April 14, 2012, with the caption: "Most European countries, and all European Union members have universal health care." Karl.brown/Obiwankenobi (talk | contribs) removed this map from the Universal health care article on July 2, 2012 noting that it was misleading, inaccurate and unsourced, and made a good faith attempt to create a reliably sourced new version of the map.
 * jacksmind (July 14, 2009). " Countries with Universal Coverage/Socialized Medicine ." DailyKos.com.

Unfortunately, the map created by Obiwankenobi on July 17, 2012 is also misleading, inaccurate and its source is not reliable: Which uses health insurance coverage percentages from Table A2.2. Formal coverage in social health protection on pages 83–90 of Appendix II in: Which for OECD countries is based on 2003 statistics in: But major discrepancies/errors are found in Table A2.2 of the 2008 ILO paper vs. OECD Total public and primary private health insurance coverage statistics for 2003 for Chile (96.0% vs. 66.1%), Israel (9.0% vs. 100%), Mexico (78.6% vs. 46.5%), United States (100% vs. 85.0%), making all ILO-based health insurance coverage data (and world maps based on it) unreliable.
 * Stuckler, David; Feigl, Andrea B.; Basu, Sanjay; McKee, Martin (November 2010)." The political economy of universal health coverage. Background paper for the First Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, 16–19 November 2010, Montreaux, Switzerland ". Pacific Health Summit Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research.
 * International Labour Organization (2008).  Social health protection: An ILO strategy towards universal access to health care. Social security policy briefings, Paper 1 . Geneva: International Labour Office. ISBN 9789221211617.
 * OECD (October 10, 2006). OECD Health Data 2006 (Update October 2006). Paris: IRDES (Institut de Recherche et Documentation en Economie de la Santé), OECD.

In addition to being based on unreliable ILO health insurance coverage data, the 2010 Stuckler et al. symposium background paper has other problems:
 * it equates 90% health insurance coverage with universal (100%) health insurance coverage
 * it erroneously says that United States is among 75 countries that have passed health legislation that explicitly states that the entire population is covered by a health plan that grants them access to a core set of services
 * it says that the United States will achieve >90% health insurance coverage by 2014

This Wikipedia map was altered from the 2010 Stuckler et al. paper map to include an additional 17 countries that the paper (dubiously) says have passed health legislation that explicitly states that the entire population is covered by a health plan that grants them access to a core set of services, but have not achieved >90% skilled birth attendance (4 countries) or >90% health insurance coverage (12 countries + the United States which the ILO says has achieved 100% health insurance coverage but has not). This Wikipedia map highlights these 17 additional countries as: "Nations with legislated mandate for Universal health coverage, but which have not yet reached thresholds above." It is not credible to highlight El Salvador (ILO 59.6%), Bolivia (ILO 66.9%), and the Congo (ILO …%) as being closer to providing universal health care than Poland (OECD 97.5%), Lithuania (ILO …%), and Lebanon (ILO 95.1%). Apatens (talk) 23:34, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

I reverted the readdition of a misleading, inaccurate map based on an unreliable ILO source by IP-hopping anonymous editor 88.232.225.122/88.232.227.246/81.213.226.125/88.224.21.194, who has reintroduced misleading, inaccurate maps without reliable sources to the Universal health care article four times without consensus, talk page discussion, or edit summaries. Apatens (talk)

"Most European countries, and all European Union members have universal health care."
I'm not getting this caption much. Especially as the map it describes shows at least 4 EU members (Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta) as grey, signifying no universal healthcare... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.135.99.175 (talk) 10:22, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Back when I added the map, at that time it did show all EU countries as green (i.e. having universal health care). SPQRobin (talk) 20:48, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I improved the caption. Please see linked discussion at the commons page. The map comes directly from a published paper which set a threshold for UHC. If you find another paper that sets a different threshold and that includes those four countries, let's find it and update the map accordingly. We need good, 3rd-party-published definitions, not just vague generalities that country X has UHC. Start your research engines! --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Unreliable and insufficient references
This article has only four references at the time of this comment. Of them, two are from a website called "Health Consumer Powerhouse", which in turn has no references whatsoever. Neither could I find any associations of the author of this website with any institutions or any citations of his material elsewhere. Since some critical information in this article, like the ranking tables are based on the aforementioned website, I think the article should be reviewed. 108.171.128.188 (talk) 10:30, 4 February 2019 (UTC)

Relevance of ranking lists by private companies
I would like to start a discussion about the relevance and therefore also about the seriousness of ranking lists produced by private companies (with their very own agenda).

Current issue is the table of the private company Health Consumer Powerhouse from Sweden.

I got the impression that the purpose of the listing of their list in this article is only in order to promote their product(s), this very ranking list, for example.

My major concerns are:


 * Independence (at least, some) is not "guaranteed". Since they are not a public organisation, nor publically surveyed, not at all.
 * They can claim whatever they like, or promote (directly or indirectly, openly or hiddenly) whatever (paying) client's opinion they want to enhance.
 * The User:Rathfelder is currently enganged to list this companies ranking list on several WP articles. He was also recently enganged to improve.
 * The fact that a company has an article in WP does not indicate any seriosity about their prodcuts (here: their ranking list), not at all.
 * HCP is not an organisation, as written in the company article, but a private company.
 * Despite all these, they pretend to be independent and somehow official. But they are not.

For me this thoroughly smells like a (hidden) promoting campaign, therefore I consider it as WP:SOAP.

Therefore, I also propose to delete the entire table in this article.

But I could be wrong. So therefore, please provide your opinions and impressions. Thanks. -- ZH8000 (talk) 10:40, 28 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I hold no brief for Health Consumer Powerhouse. They purport to offer an annual ranking of European Health systems.  It is supplied without cost.  I don't know how they pay for it.  There are not many sources of comparative data about national health systems.  I don't think we should treat it with any particular suspicion without more evidence that it is unreliable.  Its rankings are, of course, to some extent subjective, as are all such rankings.Rathfelder (talk) 16:33, 28 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I am strongly in favour of removing this table. It comes from a neoliberal think-tank with their own agenda, and the report is also extremely amateurish if you actually read the material. The metrics used to measure healthcare systems are totally arbitrary and have likely been selected to give the outcome they wanted. It also does not take into account cost of the healthcare systems. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.148.142.108 (talk) 10:25, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I will remove it. – Kaihsu (talk) 09:00, 3 January 2021 (UTC)