Talk:Health care systems

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

WikiProject Medicine This article is within the scope of WikiProject Medicine. Please visit the project page for details or ask questions at the doctor's mess.
B This page has been rated as B-Class on the quality assessment scale
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance assessment scale

Contents

[edit] Canadian Healthcare

The country with the least private involvement is Canada, where pride is widespread in their one-tier system of only government-provided healthcare.

The statement is:

  1. unclear, as it is not made clear what countries are being compared.
  2. false as, for example, many other countries have state only insurance (to varying levels of quality) and a communist state like North Korea would be also unlikely to have any private care.

Changed to

In Canada the lack of private care is notable, and pride is widespread in their one-tier system of only government-provided healthcare.

Dainamo 11:40, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Private versus Public

Does anyone know of any studies that compares the quality of the healthcare between private systems and public? RJII 20:56, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I believe RAND did a study in the seventies on different cost levels in health care (i.e. higher deductibles, lower rates, etc.), to determine their effect on overall health. Most people on the right refer to the study, as I recall, since it seemed to indicate not much difference in health between the various levels of accessibility. No idea if it's still relevent though... health costs were a lot less back then. BillyL 14 March 2005

In the summer of 06, Journal of American Medical Assn published a study of medical care in the US vs. England. They found that the poorest third of Brits (public system) have a longer life expectancy than the richest third (mostly private system) in the U.S. By this large study, those bearing the cost of the U.S. "system" are not getting the value for their money. Also, while the U.S. is #1 in money spent for health care, #2 is Switzerland, spending money at about 48% rate of the U.S. in this category. Homebuilding 12:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I do not think this issues is as simple as some make it out to be. Access to health care and quality of health care received are two different things. Similarly, the quality of health care received and factors affecting health are also different. The authors of that study do not state that "those bearing the cost of the U.S. 'system' are not getting the value for their money":
The fact that the English government provides health care to all its citizens while the United States does not may contribute to the disparity, the authors said. "But it is equally important to recognize that health insurance can not be the central reason for the better health outcomes in England because the top socioeconomic tier of the U.S. population have close to universal access but their health outcomes are often worse than those of their English counterparts," the authors said.[1]
Also, comparing cost/benefit ratios in countries offering universal health care to those not offering universal health care is a bit more complicated that what you have suggested. No doubt that high administrative and marketing costs contribute to the high expenditure of health care dollars in the United States, but that is not necessarily always a drawback. The cover of this week's BusinessWeek states: "What's Really Propping Up The Economy: Since 2001, the health-care industry has added 1.7 million jobs. The rest of the private sector? None ".[2] -AED 17:32, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Special Circumstances

This first section is pure opinion. Although there are “special circumstance” regarding healthcare I would disagree with most of what is listed: (1) food is also regarded as a basic human right, as well as shelter, etc. (2) Monopolists! How exactly are you defining monopolists? (3) Consumers also lack the information or understanding when it comes to choosing a cell phone plan or a house painter. you are not explaining a special circumstance here.

Yes there are differences, but not as described in article as is. ($%&#&#$ -- flame deleted by author) -jcp-

The whole thing is opinion. Look at the France Section if you don't believe me. "It is better"? If that isn't a POV violation, I don't know what is. Mercruz (talk) 06:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] History of healthcare systems

The following information was removed from the section entitled "History of healthcare systems". I am preserving it here for future reference and expansion:

needs fleshing out

AED 05:11, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian Health care

I have removed the sentence concerning Canada as it seemed a bit POV anyhow (The word lack suggests that there should be more private health care, which is an opinion), but is out-dated.

--A Sunshade Lust 05:05, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with Healthcare

Why to merge with Healthcare - main reason: topics covered (minor: also interwiki). wiki-vr 07:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

Oppose I can see the logic but on balance I think there is enough scope in this article for it to prosper as a separate entity with a see also link from Health care (which I have added). --Vince 08:43, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed move to Health care system

I would like to see this page moved to Health care system, with Healthcare system redirecting to it. My reasoning is this: The term "health care" is more frequently used than "healthcare". ("Health care" receives 637,000,000 Google hits, whereas "healthcare" receives 475,000,000.) Similarly, "health care system" is used more frequently than "healthcare system". ("Health care system" receives 27,600,000 Google hits; "healthcare system" receives 11,700,000.) -AED 20:58, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Moved

The only use in this page seems to be the decent list of Health care systemS. Otherwise there's no difference in the titles meaning to health care as a whole. I'm adding an S to "system" in the title for that reason. Hope this is okay with everyone.Wikidea 08:56, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Health care system models

I am a bit troubled by this section because it implies that all systems are a form of insurance where costs incurred are reimbursed.

In the UK where I come from and in Finland where I live now, as well as in neighbouring Sweden, and further afield in Denmark, and I am sure in other countries too, the notion of public health as a form of insurance is completely foreign. People do not think of themselves as being "insured". Instead, the community provides a wide ranging health service which is principally financed from taxation. In other words, it is a public service. Just as schools, fire services and roads are. We pay for them through taxation and use them when we need them.

Insurance, in my head, means sharing risk against something unfortunate. Death is perhaps unfortunate, but birth usually isn't. And neither is health screening.

Health care in the UK and Nordic countries is mostly not rebate based. It is service based. It is focussed on health and wellness, and coping with and hopefully curing sickness comes bundled with it. Hence these systems spend a lot of money promoting wellness. Everything from childhood and adult vaccinations, through to funding anti-smoking programs, substance abuse clinics, STD clinics, family planning (contraception), occupational health, physiotherapy etc.

Just as the people need roads, schools, street lighting, fresh water and waste disposal, so too do they need health services from time to time, and the people in those countries, through their governments, have just decided to just provide this as a public service, paid from taxation. Just as public roads and schools are a form of public service, so is health service in those countries. It is not insurance. --Tom 17:52, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur.

Remmo (talk) 01:23, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of the graphic

I have deleted the graphic from this article. The same graphic was at one time put into other health care articles and was removed for many of the reasons I shall discuss.

At one level, the graphic is good because it attempts to delineate two terms used in the current health care debate in the USA. These are single payer and socialized medicine. It also, on the face of it attempts to delineate two core issues. Government finance and government control.

However, at several other levels it is unhelpful for the following reasons.

1. The term socialized medicine is pejorative and not neutral.

2. The term socialized medicine does not represent a global view. It was invented in the USA and is not used in the English speaking world outside the USA. The most common term used outside the USA would be public health care system.

3. The designation of "socialized medicine" is not consistent with usage. Most users of the term "socialized medicine" in the US will describe Canada's health care system as "socialized medince" even though it is in fact a "single payer" system. Health care academics and professionals will prefer to talk of "public health care systems" or "publicly managed health care systems" but if they use the term at all they will not describe Canada's system as socialized, but rather as "single payer". Some even think that government control or regulation is the essence of "socialized medicine" and apply the term to private medicine in the USA not financed by government but which is beset by government regulation. Socialized medicine therefore has several meanings only one of which is thus represented here.

4. The term "single payer" does not represent a global view and its definition in the graphic does not even reflect usage in the USA. As a non-American I would argue that Britain's NHS is logically a single payer system because there is but one provider of finance. It is only single payer in the narrow US interpretation of that term which has come to mean "care paid for by government but delivered privately" (and not "paid for by government but not controlled by government" which is what the graphic suggests). I don't think anyone expect the US government to pay for something without there being controls!

5. It is oversimplistic. Most countries systems have a mix of public and private funding for health care and mixed levels of government control. I cannot think of a single health care system in the world that can be described accurately using one of the four labels given in each segment (even if they were accurately defined, which they are not).

6. The graphic introduces neulogisms to health care contrary to WP policy. For example "government monopoly" health care and "free market" health care. As far as I know, government monopoly health care does not exist anywhere in the world. And I suspect there are few if any of the poorer third world countries that have not yet introduced any form of government control or finance that actually would call their system "free market" health care. Do such populations describe their local vetinary services or motor mechanics as "free market vetinary services" or "free market motor mechanics"? It may be theoretically OK in terms of economic theory but it does not reflect the real world in health care.

7. I have a strong feeling that the graphic has been added to tap into a deep seated prejudice in the United States (which is not shared in many other countries) against both "government control" and "government finance" for anything, thus leading people to thinking that both "socialized medicine" and "single-payer" are somehow something less than the ideal state. In this sense it is, in my opinion, a very mild form POV pushing.

[edit] Papers on Yoruba Indigenous Healthcare Delivery System

I have a lot of puplishable papers on the Yoruba indigenous healthcare delivery system. They are all from my PhD Thesis. All interested Journals should contact:

 Oladele Caleb ORIMOOGUNJE, PhD
 Dept. of Linguistics, African and Asian Studies,
 University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba,
 Nigeria. 
 Email: moogunje@yahoo.com  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.199.53.204 (talk) 10:31, 6 February 2008 (UTC)