Talk:Health care politics

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[edit] 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)

[edit] 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 — 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 — 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)

[edit] 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)