Talk:Socialized medicine

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Cost of care section
I've added a paragraph at the front of the cost of care section because the argument as I hear it is mainly about the high cost, low returns, and low population coverage in the U.S. compared to other similar industrialized countries. The rest of the section is a dull discusssion which more or less examines the reasons for this. But not much of it seems to address the topic of the article (i.e. socialized medicine).

Finland
I made 2 changes to the section on Finland. First, neither Finns nor the cited references refer to Finland as having socialized medicine. Second and more importantly, the wording of the 2nd paragraph sounded like 60.8% of Finnish taxes went for health care (when it is actually 6.8% and falling) and then offered a PoV conclusion that Finland was more socialized than other nations.

I went back to the actual wording from the source documents that "the percentage of total health expenditure financed by taxation" is 60.8% (and falling) and removed the PoV conclusion.

Best regards, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 03:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Well no, it would not refer to the term "socialized medicine" because, as the article explains, the term "socialized medicine" is one that is not used in official circles but is generally restricted to those using the term for political purposes in the United States. You have also misunderstood the difference in terminology. The 6.8% figure is the percentage of GDP devoted to health care. It covers all expenditure (private and public) expressed as a percentage of GDP. This figure tells you nothing about the level of government spending and therefore the degree to which health care is paid directly by government. The 60.8% figure is the total of public expenditure from taxation that goes to health care. This definitely puts Finland in the same cluster group as the UK, Spain and Italy, three European countries that share the same model of health care as the strict definition of socialized medicine; i.e. where government is largely responsible for the funding and the delivery of health care services. In Finland it it is the local communities that obtain income from taxation that run all the local community hospitals and community health centers and national government that runs the major teaching hosptials. There are no private hospitals though some private clinics run as part of the occupational health care system financed by employers can do minor surgeries. The volume of these is however, insignificant.

Also you were wrong to say "...that depend more upon taxation as a source of revenue than insurance or out of pocket expenses" because the graph in the source refers not to "insurance or out of pocket expenses" but "percentage of total health expenditure from social health insurance". Social insurance is compulsory insurance (usually related to income) that goes to non-profit sickness funds established by or regulated by government) to direct legally sequestered funding from employers and employees (and in France by those living on private wealth) into health care. The money from these funds does not pass thru government hands and therefore the cluster A represents the least socialized from the point of view of government actually receiving health care funds and delivering care. That is the meaning of the clusters A B and C.

So for this reason I will undo the last of your two edits. If you are still unclear why, please discuss this here.--Hauskalainen (talk) 10:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

P.S. That the percentage of GDP fell (over the years in the table) was due to the recovery from the terrible slump in GDP during the early 1990s that Finland suffered because of the collapse in trade with its neighbor and trading partner Russia following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As GDP rose faster than the rise in health care spending, the percent of GDP spent on health care naturally fell. --Hauskalainen (talk) 10:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually, I completely understand the difference in terminology– it was the wiki article that wasn't clear. I carefully read (and reread) both PDF documents to understand how the article combined the references. As written, the article sounds like 60.8% of taxes goes to health care, which it does not, which is why I lifted half a sentence intact to clarify. Having been an economics instructor, these 'little things' are crucial to understanding. While I wouldn't object to removing the out-of-pocket verbiage (which I used from the other PDF), without the other changes I made, a false impression is created.


 * The majority of health care facilities are community owned, like a large proportion of hospitals in the US. Much of Finland is remote and rural, making a free market hospital impractical (and unprofitable) in many regions. Finns, who are very sensitive about proximity to the former USSR and history with Russia, take great offense in attempts to ally the Finn medical model with Russia rather than with, say, the US, which makes parts of this section sound like it's written by an American who's never set foot in Finland. Part of my problem is the pejorative terms used, such as loaded POV words 'compulsory' and 'socialized'. FICA in the US is compulsory, but Americans call our models 'compulsory' and 'socialized' but not their own.


 * Be that as it may, the first sentence of the 2nd paragraph (if I remember correctly) is the most troublesome. Without extended debate, I suggest we use the phrase from the actual article. I further suggest we consider ideas how to make other parts less POV. It worth noting that Finn satisfaction with health service approaches 90%. I'm not sure what the number is in the US, but it is certainly greater than most other EC nations and especially Russia.


 * Best regards, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 21:01, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I haven't seen a response about removing the politically loaded words and using the precise wording in the source documents instead of the present muddled wording. Thank you.


 * --UnicornTapestry (talk) 17:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * I have used the precise wording from the PDFs to remove the mistaken implication that 61% of taxes goes toward health care. In a spirit of compromise, I have left 'compulsory insurance' in place, although it could be argued it is used in a pejorative sense sine American FICA is not described as 'compulsory'.


 * --UnicornTapestry (talk) 06:48, 13 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually there is something deeply wrong with this paragraph because accordng to more recent OECD data Finland sits between Germany and France in the propotion of public funding. See http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/52/33/38976604.pdf. It may be because tthe original source quoted is now 10 years out of date or it may be that the WHO regards both direct taxation and compulsory earnings related social insurance contributions as a form of taxation in the reference I just gave. If I get time I will try to figure this out. In the meantime, given the apparent conflict, I may adjust the text slightly.


 * Pretty good job! --UnicornTapestry (talk) 19:10, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Why is it rationing if the NHS restricts coverage but not when a private insurer does it?
(section originally titled "Deletion of silly citation requests ") to reflect the more important issue on the "name calling" of coverage restrictions which emerged

Someone had added a request for citation about sevices which are available on the NHS which are not available from private insurers. I have given a reference from the ABI regarding private insurers positions in the UK about not covering treatments like cosmetic surgery, organ transplants, dialysis, pregnancy etc. If you seriously believe that these services are not available from the NHS then I am not sure what all those organ transplant specialists, midwives and delivery suites are doing in NHS hospitals. If you like, you can go to the nhs web site at www.nhs.uk and follow the Health A-Z link. I seriously do not think that it necessary to show that most of these services which private insurers exclude are provided by the NHS. The ABI statement makes it clear that the NHS provides these services. And as the article already shows, health care in the UK is free at the point of use (except in a few circumstances like some dental treatments for some people, and small drug co-pays for some people).--Hauskalainen (talk) 15:20, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * You know better than this Hauskalainen. What you are adding here is quite clearly original synthesis.  It wouldn't make the slightest difference if you were to provide addition cites to what the NHS provides.   If you are going to insert an argument about what the NHS provides in comparison with what insurers provide then you need a reliable source that has already done this.  You cannot make a comparison out of combining separate cites.  Nor can you provide your own analysis of why this situation occurs.  You need a reliable source that has already done this.
 * More specifically;
 * You have an uncited and emotive statement about "enraged" persons, but provide no proof of any. Cites shouldn't be hard to get here.
 * You describe allegations as "galling", hardly a neutral description, without any cite to describe them thus.
 * You boldly state "it is private health insurers that are much more likely to ration care (in the sense of not covering services) than the NHS" - but have no cite to demonstrate this other than your following synthesis,
 * You say "Insurers do not cover these because they feel that they do not need to since the NHS already provides coverage and to provide the choice of a private provider would make the insurance prohibitively expensive."  You need a reliable cite that states Insurers' supposed reasoning here.  All you cite is a list of what they don't provide, the explanations as to why simply do not appear in the cited pdf.  So how do you know this is the case?
 * Then you round it off with the conclusion Thus in the UK there is cost shifting from the private sector to the public sector, which again is the opposite to the allegation of cost shifting in the U.S. from public providers such as Medicare and Medicaid onto the private sector. - whose conclusion is this? Why is it not cited from a reliable source?
 * I'm afraid that it all looks like your own personal conclusions based on the few cites you do supply. That's as good a definition of original synthesis as you're ever likely to get. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 17:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * There is no problem of misinterpretation. Clearly the ABI says these service are excluded are from private insurers list of covered items and the same reference also says why.


 * "PMI isn’t designed to cover the long-term treatment of chronic conditions for a number of reasons.
 * The private-hospital sector’s main purpose is to treat conditions that can be cured, or mostly cured, quickly.
 * A large part of the NHS’s funding is to care for patients with long-term conditions. So, for example, patients with diabetes can go to clinics, be regularly monitored and have their insulin needs met. This will often happen locally, in a primary-care setting such as their GP surgery. As well as the practical reasons mentioned before, insurers also have to balance how much cover they provide with what you are willing to pay for that cover. So, insurers don’t cover the treatment of long-term (chronic) conditions. This is because their premiums would become too expensive for most people." (Page 10 of the ABI guide)


 * Insurers in the UK do not want to and providers are not set up to care for long term chronic issues and they leave people to get care in the NHS. The reason why the private sector existed was to enable people to have a choice and to jump the queues that used to exist for elective surgery. That is presumably why childbirth is not there. The NHS does not queue women in labor! Surely, the insurers are cost shifting the cost of childbirth (and dialysis for that matter and other things besides) onto the NHS because they deny this coverage to their customers. Its cost shifting of the highest order!


 * Now, no British journalistic or academic source would ever have to inform the public or his readership that you get a wider range of services from the NHS because everyone knows this. Your argument is saying that if I can show that there are no emergency room services in UK private hospitals and that private insurance will not even pay the cost incurred of treatment in an NHS hospital (which they will not) and that the NHS treats annually around 18 million people (which it does), this would still not satisfy you because some other person has not made the same observation. Your argument that this would be WP:SYNTH and therefore inadmissable is totally laugable! Take your argument to the WP:SYN noticeboard!  I can get references for the NHS providing most of the services excluded by the private insurers but the effect is just that it is going to clog up the references list unneccessarily.


 * I will get you a reference for enraged (or whatever similar adjective many have been used by the British media). As you say, I am sure it will be easy to find.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Whether my argument is laughable or not, you are still indulging in original synthesis. Makes no difference if "everyone knows this" or not.   If the situation is as you claim, and is significant enough for the article, it will, inevitably, have been discussed elsewhere.  If it hasn't, then either your analysis is flawed, or not notable.  Either way, it shouldn't be there.
 * It is also a flawed argument to equate health insurance with the private sector. One is only part of the other.  No-one offers insurance against pregnancy because, logically, it is not an unforeseen medical condition that you insure against.  But that doesn't mean that births don't happen in private hospitals.  Your definition of health insurance excluding certain conditions as being "rationing" is also dubious.  If you had a cite describing it such there'd be no problem, but as the paragraph is largely uncited, it has to be questioned.
 * Your concluding sentence remains uncited. You have no source where this conclusion is made. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 20:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Why is denial of coverage "rationing" if it happens in the public sector, but not if it happens in the private sector? I fail to understand that logic entirely! Do you have a WP;RS dor that ;) ? As for childbirth there are very very few private hospitals catering for this. See http://www.privatehealth.co.uk/private-healthcare-services/private-maternity-services/private-maternity-hospitals/ The difference in cost (I am guessing but it must be in the region of 8-15k pounds -about 15-25k US dollars- compared to a free delivery in an NHS hospital) would mean you would have to be fabulously rich for the cost not to be a concern. Take your argument about about WP:SYN to the relevant noticeboard if you are concerned about it.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:48, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * If McDonalds decline to sell you alcohol, are they "rationing" alcohol, or simply not interested in entering that market? Healthcare insurers, for their own reasons, are not interested in certain areas of healthcare provision. They are not preventing anyone else having access to it, and they are not preventing anyone else providing it.  They are not 'rationing' it in anything like the way discussed in the rest of the article, and calling it so is misleading. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 21:07, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Another silly comment because nobody expects to get alcohol from McDonalds. They do expect to get health care costs covered by their health care insurer! A coverage restriction is a way to cut expenditures. Given that issues like diabetes and high blood pressure and COPD and arthritis are all major chronic ilnesses and there are normal expected lifetime health care needs during pregnancy / family planning/ terminal care, one might expect one's insurer to cover these items. Well the NHS does and the fact is the private insurers do not. That means that their non-entry is worse than a form of rationing, its a denial of choice. Thank God for the NHS!


 * "Not entering the market" is merely a euphamism for passing the costs of expensive care onto the taxpayer. It really is rationing (because it is saying "we are not paying for that - go find someone else who will or pay it yourself) and a form of coat ahifting. When the NHS refused to pay for a drug against Alzheimers it pointed out that other treatments (social interaction and mental exercises) were very much cheaper and more effective. (The NHS and local social services offices run day centers for older people where they can get stimulation to stave off mental decline). It does not abandon people but uses best available knowledge to treat people. Passing the medical care buck is what the British insurers do, as did the American insurance industry in the 1960s with the passing of Medicaid, and more recently in the Part D extension, pushing costs onto the government. Given that most people have the highest health care expenditures in the last years of life, its amazing how well Medicare does against the private insurers because it is not consuming 80% of health care costs as one might expect.


 * "What I'd like to know is that Britain and America have roughly the same number of doctors and nurses and hospital beds per head of population and the Brits cover all their Citizens (irrespective of their age and health status) whereas the Americans cover only 85%. And yet U.S. health care costs per head are four times higher than they are in Britain. Four times!! Nobody getting service from the NHS receives any medical bills. Salaries are the biggest single cost in the UK health service and yet nurses and doctors salaries are not receiving 4 times higher salaries in the U.S. than their counterparts in the UK. I think that someone seriously needs to follow the money and most of it, I suspect, is found to be wasted in the insurance industry. This creates a whole layer of bureacracy (marketing, selling, underwriting, funding, tracking, reconciliation, claims scrutiny) most of which is entirely absent in many other countries' systems. And that's before you get to those obscene executive salaries. Someone surely has done the research, but I have yet to find it. Does anyone know of any?--Hauskalainen (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

You cannot 'ration' a commodity unless you control a monopoly on it. Simple as that. A UK health care insurer cannot "ration" healthcare because they are not anywhere near a monopoly position. People are free and able to obtain their heathcare elsewhere. Insurers simply do not provide certain care because there's no profit to be made in it. That is not rationing.

I'm not going to respond to the rest of what you say, as this is not a discussion forum. The fact you are still thrashing around looking for cites is indication enough that what you have added is your own synthesis that you have been unable to source anywhere. -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 22:08, 11 September 2009 (UTC)


 * But the NHS is not a monopoly supplier. Price level rationing assumes a free market so rationing per se does not need a monopoly. I agree that people can get their health care elsewhere in the UK. There are no practice restrictions and there are plenty of private clinics, hospitals and doctors. If you want to get coverage for NICE excluded drugs for example you can indeed buy it. But if the NHS sets a coverage limit it gets labeled as rationing. If an insurer does it is not. That remains a fact. A weird one to be sure, but a fact nevertheless. The only difference as I see it is that you cite the profit motive as the driver in the actions of private insurers denying coverage. Profit is not a word that exists in the NHS lexicon. Equity is. --Hauskalainen (talk) 00:17, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Get a room already you two. Since the precedent has already been set that this is a health care debate forum, I will add my two cents.

If health care rationing occurs at all, it occurs not only by single-payer or publicly funded health care systems but also by private health insurance companies. Information about anything is added on this encyclopedia because people have done research on something that they already have a feeling that it is happening or has happened. You know, I know, my dog knows that rationing--or whatever liberal v. conservative term you want to use--happens. It happens in the United Kingdom and it certainly happens in the United States. There was a comment above that stated something to the effect of "it's not rationing when private insurance companies do it, they're just trying to make a profit." Newsflash, that's called rationing....it occurs because the cost of an operation or a doctor's visit is so high that it is a liability to the company and so it must be prevented. In America, where I live, I've known countless people who were either or both outright denied health care coverage or were denied certain procedures. Some have died. I would hate to attack the ego of a conservative by calling it rationing, but it is nothing else. It's capitalist health care.

Because health care rationing is a reality in both public and private health care systems, whether one or two of you believe so or not, it would behoove one or both of you to do the necessary research and fact-finding to uncover documentation, whether it be studies or news articles. The gentlelady or gentlemen who brought the topic up might, in my opinion, have been far more successful in this debate had he or she come prepared with citations.

On a side note, I will give it 72 hours before someone tells me here on this page that rationing in private health care systems doesn't exist. GnarlyLikeWhoa (talk) 04:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Haiti
For those interested in furthering the article, I read a news article not long ago (which I can no longer locate) that discussed Haiti's medical system. Apparently Haiti had a devilishly awful HIV infection rate, a factor greater than Western nations who predicted disaster for the island nation. If I recall the article correctly, government medical programs took the matter in hand, provided the HIV cocktails at cost, and now has a mortality rate a fraction (1/15 I think was the number) that of the US. My specifics may be faulty, but not the substance of the article.

Good luck, --UnicornTapestry (talk) 11:56, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Spelling homoginization
It seems appropriate that the spelling should be standardized in this article, rather than switching from American to British back to American spellings (e.g. socialised, socialized).


 * It may seem appropriate to standardize the spelling, but keep in mind that not every user knows that a word might be spelled differently by other users of English. Steggall 17:05, 21 Nov 2009 (UTC)

The majority of "ises" in British English can be spelled "izes". If fact the OED preferes the latter. Using the "s" variant in British English is a phenomenon of the last half century and its ubiquitous use has led many to wrongly identify "izes" as American English. To answer your point there should be consistency in any article. Dainamo (talk) 18:39, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Citations needed, section 4.8 (United States)
I don't feel competent to add the necessary tags to refer to the poll that was conducted, but a PDF of the poll report is available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/files/Topline__Socialized_Med_Havard_Harris.pdf

It's not well formatted and contains only brief summary stats but hopefully it will address the "citation needed" requirements.

There's a link to the PDF on the page containing the press release (which is already a reference attached to the article). This may have been added at a later date. HTH, AncientBrit (talk) 16:04, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Debate: Political controversies in the United States
It seems no one has hit the nail on the head when it comes to explain what is exactly unbalanced with the "Controversies" section. Plainly: only the arguments against socialized health care are exposed (the possible draw backs) and none of the possible advocated gains which are also part of the "controversy". This is what makes this section unbalanced. There is no more room for the reader to question himself/herself on the subject matter. The article presents more arguments and negative consequences againsts socialized health care than any possible gain (e.i.: if quality goes down, costs go up, innovation lags and access is restricted... what possible controversy could be left???). Obviously a self-serving article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prisme (talk • contribs) 14:06, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

too many opinion pieces are cited. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.70.30.45 (talk) 05:42, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I have added the tag to this section. As I read it, it sounded like a point-counterpoint debate to push the POV of one side of the controversy. Both sides are represented fairly in the quantitative sense, but there is a very obvious bias in the resolution of the discussion. Comments are invited. Sabin4232 (talk) 03:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems that someone decided to delete properly-linked relevant information that I have added. The text was:
 * The strongest objection lies within the US Constitution, which only gives certain enumerated powers to the Federal Government, none of which include dealing with health care. Opponents of socialized medicine who object on these grounds suggest that such a system may be viable (and legal) on the State or Local levels of government, but not at the federal level.

Did I write something wrong here? I will hold off reverting (or re-adding) until I get some consensus (or lack of an answer at all). Thanks! Sabin4232 (talk) 08:24, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

As the ediitor who reverted, let me help you here. In addition to the text you mention above, you also wrote "The debate has been undermined by the Progressive subparty, currently embedded within both of the major parties to carry out its agenda, which includes a fully-socialized system such as the United Kingdom's NHS."


 * 1) You gave no references for the claim that there is a "progressive sub-party" nor
 * 2) That it wants to create a fully socialized system as the United Kingdom's NHS".  That is opinion but unless you tell us whose it is then we shall have to assume it is yours (which, unless you can claim to be a WP:RS we have to ignore.
 * 3) As to the other text, the "strongest objection" is also opinion. And
 * 4) as for the legislation passed this year the best you can say is that the Adminstration believes it is constitutional and some state officials believe it is not. Until it has been tested in the courts this remains to be opinion.

The fact that you have added wikilinks is irrelevant. Your text expresses opinion, is one sided, and totally lacking any references.--Hauskalainen (talk) 02:00, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the assessment that the article is unbalanced, even though and I happen to side with the political POV favored by the imbalance. First, opinion pieces and most contemporary mainstream articles are usually not reliable sources on a subject like this. Regardless of their authors' credentials, these materials tend to be subjective, presenting arguments that advocate one perspective without giving similar consideration to opposing views. Even if they do provide objective data, the data is often used selectively to fit the position. Better to go directly to the sources of the data. Second, the History section's focus on Giuliani is somewhat irrelevant in terms of the subject (socialized medicine versus the political controversy currently surrounding it), it's too long relative to everything else that's presented, and in terms of informing the reader on socialized medicine, it's not very significant.

My "two cents": Concentrate on material relating to the development and current state of socialized medicine around the world and spend as little time as possible on the political controversy in the US since that is of secondary interest, and besides, the picture is going to change rapidly. Above all, editors who gravitated here primarily because to advocate one position or another should refrain from working on the article.Allreet (talk) 19:01, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The more neutral articles already exist. See publicly-funded health care and Universal health care. It is quite proper that this article should look at all sides. One would expect an article that looks at a term intended to sway public opinion would look at the extent to which public opinion has been affected. In the U.S. it seems to have swung from being negative to rather positive irrespective of attmepts by politicians and others in the fair and balanced media to use the term negatively. I am curious to know in what way you think this article is presently unbalanced. Please tell.--Hauskalainen (talk) 22:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't agree that it is "quite proper to look at all sides" when the exercise renders the subject secondary. The title of the article is "Socialized medicine", not "The debate over health care reform". "Balance" would apply to the latter, while the former requires objectivite definition. Despite all its words, the article fails to tell readers what socialized medicine is. Allreet (talk) 16:43, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

This section look closes to my comment .This article seems to be very self serving for the Democratic Party (US). It doesn't take in account the fact that most of the countries used as pro argument doesn't mention that the reason there cost is so low is because the American system eats all the research and development cost.taken from xcomony article* "Roche is headquartered in Basel, so you might think that all of its drugs are created in Switzerland. Actually, many of Roche’s biggest blockbusters were born in the USA at Genentech, its South San Francisco based subsidiary. Roche’s acquisition of Genentech (initiated in 1990 and completed in 2009) has been a trans formative driver of the company’s success in recent years. It led Roche to abandon the PhRMA trade group in favor of BIO, and to re-brand of many of its drugs from having the Roche imprint on the label to Genentech.

Sanofi is located in Paris, so its drugs originate in France, right? Many do, but with its acquisition of Boston-based Genzyme and more recent business deals with Tarrytown, NY-based Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: REGN) and Cambridge, MA-based Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY), much of the company’s R&D work is now happening here in the U.S. Want evidence for the importance of this American connection? Chris Viehbacher, Sanofi’s German-Canadian CEO, has actually moved from Paris to Beantown."

of the 159 break threw drugs from 2000-2010 111 came from USA. why because of simple economics they will get research fund back here.If all these countries take on there own military cost .they all have same armed forces because they know USA will use the military.if they take on there share of research cost lets see if the people are as eager to foot universal health cost.instead of 35% tax in Germany you give government 60-75% of ever dollar you make.

Medicare is far from social medicine it just prepaid insurance you pay in for 45 years of time you work plus still have to pay another 110 a month after start getting social security. the VA isn't social medicine per say it a benefit for serving your country it a military expense it not a separate tax.

last point there also no mention of that it unamerican.Our constitution limits federal powers and the discuss of medical should be left to states. in Europe they don't get insurance from EU they get it from there country .think of USA as the EU with 54 countries (including territories)

i could go get a bunch of opinion pieces for references but i think you get the idea of how i feel the article is a opinion piece in itself instead of just a fact base explanation of what socialized medicine is.6thstreetfisherman (talk) 06:12, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid all you've discussed here is a collection of your own theories and opinions, which are sometimes hard to follow. If you want to suggest that the existence of "socialized medicine" in other countries is because the US doesn't have one, you'll need to present some good cites that argue this.  It would also be good if these cites presented some evidence to support this, rather than just being opinion pieces. Thanks. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 13:35, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid all you've discussed here is a collection of your own theories and opinions, which are sometimes hard to follow. If you want to suggest that the existence of "socialized medicine" in other countries is because the US doesn't have one, you'll need to present some good cites that argue this.  It would also be good if these cites presented some evidence to support this, rather than just being opinion pieces. Thanks. -- Escape Orbit  (Talk) 13:35, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

Suggestion: spin off the controversy
I'll up the ante on my suggestions above. From the very first sentence on, this article has fallen victim to the left-right political arguments over health care reform in the United States. For example, the lead starts off by characterizing "socialized medicine" as a pejorative, which means it is primarily that. By contrast, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines socialized medicine as what it is and makes no mention of how some people have come to disparage the term with their usage.

That aside, almost everything in the US and UK sections is a back and forth of pros and cons. In my view, controversies on subjects like this are an afterthought, something that follows descriptive passages defining a subject's characteristics and historical development. What's here instead are arguments about the viability of socialized medicine. On top of that, the sources relied on in many cases are not only the opinion pieces and mainstream articles mentioned above, but websites such as Politico, Politi-Fact (3 cites) and FactCheck. My POV is that these sites are far less objective and reliable than Wikipedia. For example, at one point, Politi-Fact (St. Petersburg Times) cites someone from the Cato Institute, a partisan source, as the last word on an issue, and then the WP article cites Politi-Fact. Certainly, we should be aiming for something on a higher plane.

My opinion, then, is that much of this article fails to meet Wikipedia's standards for POV, verifiablity, notability, reliability, and good editorial practices. I don't mean to disparage anyone's good faith efforts, nor am I saying that everything is amiss, but because of how consumed we in the US are with the health care issue, much of this is a mess. Therefore, I believe it would be best to spin off the controversies as a separate article. The main article should focus on what people need to know about how socialized medical systems developed and operate worldwide, without fear, favor or judgment. As for the controversies, given the political tempers and temperaments of the moment, I don't think it's possible to come out of this with anything approaching a good article.

The point is, I originally came to this article as an average reader, that is, simply to learn something about the nature of socialized medicine and how these systems are run in different countries. Instead, what I found is something I can find in a million places on the Internet: an unsettled, never-ending argument skewed by political subjectivity. Allreet (talk) 21:52, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * If you wanted to understand how public medicine works worldwide, instead of reading this article you should have read the article publicly-funded health care and/or the article universal health care. The point of this article is to examine the issues surrounding the term "socialized medicine" and determine to what extent (if any) the claims and counterclaims about socialized medicine are supported by factually verifiable data. To the extent that this article does this (and I see nothing wrong with using sources such as politico and factcheck.org) I think this article serves its purpose and covers those issues which publicly-funded health care does not. The whole point of the term "socialized medicine" in U.S. politics was to stir up emotions which may or may not be true in reality. You really cannot "spin-off" the controversy. It is inextricalbly interlinked.--Hauskalainen (talk) 22:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)


 * This really is quite a terrible, dreadful article. It is difficult to read due to numerous grammatical mistakes. There are careless and sloppy flaws such as run-on sentences everywhere. As for the contents, this seems like a Middle School grade student's persuasive essay assignment about how bad free-markets are and how great government statism is. There is not even a slight pretense of objectivity. Large sections of text exist without the slightest sourcing. I would give it a C- if I graded it. Sugar-Baby-Love (talk) 01:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I see it differently -- as the article itself states, "socialized medicine" is a primarily US term for "universal health care" or "public health care". So everything about systems of health care in the rest of the world should be taken out of this article, leaving essentially nothing but US political controversies here. Though I do agree that most of the Controversy section doesn't belong either. Since "socialized medicine" is in no way a neutral term even for public health care in the US, information about actual US health systems and general coverage of the controversy doesn't belong here either. The article "socialized medicine" should be about nothing but the term itself, and the specific controversies attending its use. (Most of that is contained in the "History of the term" section.) -- Perey (talk) 14:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * And I agree. In the US, "Socialized Medicine" is a label opponents of health care reform use in an attempt to demonize and thereby defeat reform measures. The term has no official meaning: it is applied only by opponents, it is not used by any authoritative agencies or agents (other than by those who are opponents but not at all by advocates of reform), and it is not used in any of the reform bills themselves. It has been a POV (non-objective) accusation from the start, and by and large, the effort to build an article around the political debate only legitimizes an essentially illegitimate application of the term. To clarify that, I would simply say that a true Socialist would look at the current health care bill/system and their response would have to be "that's not socialism." The means of production and distribution remain in private hands, and current controls and funding measures do not alter the fact that the system is still predominantly capitalistic in nature, regardless of public funding. My point in mentioning this is not to support adding this POV to the article (though it should be emphasized more forcefully and thoroughly than to simply call the term "pejorative"), but only to say that much of the debate presented here has nothing whatsoever to do with defining the term. Allreet (talk) 16:29, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

No Definition tag
The article's lead paragraph uses just three words to define Socialized Medicine: "publicly-funded health care". Besides the debatability of this as a precise definition, every other word in the paragraph relates to the US controversy. This material belongs in a second or third paragraph since it is secondary to the definition itself. Among the definitions available elsewhere on the Internet (presented not as definitive but as examples):


 * A system of health care in which all health personnel and health facilities, including doctors and hospitals, work for the government and draw salaries from the government. Doctors in the US Veterans Administration and the Armed Services are paid this way. And the Veterans and US military hospitals are also supported this way. Examples also exist in Great Britain and Spain. MedicineNet.com


 * Medical and hospital services for the members of a class or population administered by an organized group (as a state agency) and paid for from funds obtained usually by assessments, philanthropy, or taxation Merriam-Webster.com

Admittedly, even these could be debated as US-centric, but at least there is an attempt to objectively describe the term. The following, for example, makes clear that the definition given is specific to the United States, thus setting it apart from how the term might be used elsewhere in the world, that is, universally:


 * U.S. Health care subsidized by government: a system of national health care that provides medical care to all and is regulated and subsidized by the government. Encarta

A more subjective example follows and would not be acceptable because of the source (a paper or opinion piece from an organization known to promote a particular view of the issue):


 * A reasonable definition of socialized medicine is possible. Socialized medicine exists to the extent that government controls medical resources and socializes the costs. Notice that under this definition, it is irrelevant whether we describe medical resources (e.g., hospitals, employees) as "public" or "private." What matters-what determines real as opposed to nominal ownership-is who controls the resources. By that definition, America’s health sector is already more than half socialized, and Obama’s health care plan would socialize medicine even further. Cato Institute

The definition here is broad enough to support the writer's thesis that the US health care system is already socialized (more than half, presumably based on Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans' Administration, etc.), but without addressing aspects raised by other definitions.

Certainly, with all the information available, we could come up with something better than the current lead paragraph. Whatever that might be, I would caution against limiting this to the US application of the term. If that requires more than one definition (the range of possibilities), all the better for readers worldwide. Allreet (talk) 15:51, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

$34,000 a year
I have added "citation needed" to this even though the text says "according to the New England Journal of Medicine". This journal is being quoted by a website but we don't know where it actually appears in the journal nor where the journal got it from. It is not a figure I recognise from UK coverage of this issue. Unless we can find where NICE states this, is it really valid for this to be used as if it is a fact? Allen Brown (talk) 09:11, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree it is not appropriate - a)any value woul dbe in pounds rather than dollars (a weak argument I know), but also b) such an arbitary limit does not exist. It has been suggested that the cost per QALY threshold varies between £20,000 and £35,000 dependent on the precise complex factors surrounding each technology assessment and NICE have never officially confimred what threshold value they do use. These figures are at be4st, speculative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.175.230.62 (talk) 12:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Relocating the international material
As the template advised, this article was too long and poorly focused and also there are many other articles that cover the different countries' approaches to universal health care which is the global standard term. So I relocated the international material to individual sections in Universal health coverage by country. It still needs integrating into the respective sections there as I advised on the talk page. This edit was a good faith effort to improve coherence, readability and focus as well as remove repetition overall but of course, all the different components need further tightening. Whiteghost.ink (talk) 02:30, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080530160511/http://www.hillsdale.edu/hctools/imprimis_archive/2006/07/2006_07_Imprimis.pdf to http://www.hillsdale.edu/hctools/imprimis_archive/2006/07/2006_07_Imprimis.pdf

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