Talk:Universal health care

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European Union

http://fadelibrary.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/healthcare-across-eu-borders-a-safe-framework/ http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200809/ldselect/ldeucom/30/3004.htm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7484198.stm

Please add a chapter called European Union, this is very important, this will totally change the concept of Universal Health Care in the European Union countries.

• • • • • The initiative follows a series of judgements in the European Court of Justice which established the right of European citizens to seek treatment abroad if they are entitled to it in their own country but have suffered an unreasonable delay.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/the-international-health-service-plan-to-give-british-patients-the-right-to-treatment-abroad-414809.html ********

Please say it in the way you want, but basically, if you are a European you can go any country you want in the European Union and use the health care system of the other country, your government has to pay the bill. All the information is on the website. Lets say that I am Italian and the hospital in my region do not provide the care I need, I can fly to France or Spain get the help I need there and pay 0 zero cero, THE iTALIAN GOVERMENT HAS TO SEND THE CHECK TO THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT. This was a rule by the European Court of Justice, —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.104.87 (talk) 23:23, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

China

China to provide universal health care by 2020

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iZ2J6GxXq5H15q6GophdmYSPrCPQD97CVB0O1 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.179.104.87 (talk) 20:38, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Strong Bias in the United States Section

Someone obviously vandalized this site. Under US section, vulgar words have been inserted. Unsure of how to fix, but seeing this adds to the notion that this site is too biased to use as a reference source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.115.57.83 (talk) 17:27, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

In the section on the United States, there is strong Bias towards a pro- Universal Healthcare. The article is practically glorifying it. I dispute the neutrality of this section. Statistics for the other side are provided but not for the negative side. And the cons of the pro-con section are the most general arguments I have heard against universal health care, not to mention the number of pros out weigh the cons. 69.145.140.178 (talk) 05:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

That's fine. Why don't you pull up some statistics that defend the notion that privatized health care, as it exists in the U.S. right now, is more efficient than universal healthcare as applied in Sweden, or France? I wish you luck finding them. Let the Republicans rant and rave about the inefficiency of European health care; there are no facts to back them up, as those of us with experience in both systems can tell you. 147.9.177.90 (talk) 06:28, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Straw man. Health care in the US right now sucks (IMHO), but it is not "privatized health care". It is very much a 'mixed system' (~ 45% public!), and suffers from that mixture. What is needed is a totally free (as in free speech) system. Where can those wishing to make these kinds of arguments add them? Where can one talk about how the current crippled insane employer linked system evolved? Rjljr2 (talk) 16:54, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of this article is not to provide a forum for "those wishing to make these kinds of arguments". There are several other articles in Wikipedia specific to the US health care system. You may want to have a look at Health care in the United States and Health care reform in the United States. If you have other reliable sources to contribute there, please feel free to make bold edits or add to the discussions on their related talk pages about how to handle the US-specific debate in a neutral way in keeping with Wikipedia's core policies on reliable sourcing and no original research.--Sfmammamia (talk) 22:14, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Point taken and understood... I am glad my initial reaction was to post here in the talk thread:) Nevertheless, the article as is seems to lack references to stronger criticism of "Universal Health Care". If I find time I will try to add something (in accordance with the core policies, i.e. not debate). Rjljr2 (talk) 13:11, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree with what Sfmammamia says. The article should be confined to factual information rather that claims made by proponents or opponents which often cannot be demonstrated to be true one way or the other. Otherwise you get claims and counter claims and their respective supporting information, which may give food for thought but makes the article somewhat longer and therefore tedious to read.--Tom (talk) 19:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

The argument is certainly made in this article for universal health care in the US, most blatantly in the section where it is mentioned that "conservatives can support this because..." then mentions the lower cost spent per person by the government. People disregard the facts that American private health care dollars fund the lion's share of the R&D in the world health care system, and that American companies that shelter income in European countries for a lower tax burden provide much of the funding for health care overseas. I'm not against the idea, but I think if you want to make an argument on a page like this, you need to present legitimate arguments, not impassioned rants. My vote is for removing the "pro-con" approach to the writing and just present facts. Bradbutler01 (talk) 13:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Peru

Could you guys please write an article regarding this issue:

In Peru the Universal health Care access become a right, the government will merge the 3 Peruvian health institutions(military, Social Security and Emergency for the poor(kinda medicaid)). Peru will be the 4th real Universal Health Care provider in the Americas, after Canada, Brazil and Cuba. Just to let you guys know, Peru is pro Free trade and business, we have free trade with US, Canada, China, Japan, Australia, South Korea Chile, Indonesia , European Union, EFTA, and looking for one with Australia and Russia. So Peru is not what you will call a closed economy or socialist(US way of naming communists).

Law on Health Insurance published today http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=mSOVQJu0hxY=

Law on Health Insurance marks major reform http://www.andina.com.pe/Ingles/Noticia.aspx?id=rsbFfAZYpMU=

I hope this information works, I am pro Universal health care provided by the US government modeling Canada's. Say bye bye to the greedy private providers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 164.106.14.170 (talk) 16:57, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Proposed text on Mexico

Mexico's Universal Health Care

http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/en/press/?contenido=40872

Accompanied by state governor Leonel Godoy Rangel and Health Secretary José Ángel Córdova Villalobos, President Calderón declared that regardless of the country's accumulated lag in health and the number of years that have elapsed without dealing with the problem, this Administration is determined to deal with it. Proof of this, he declared, is that in 2009, Federal Government will assign $133 billion pesos to this sector, in other words, 20% more than in 2008. He added that over the past two years, the amount of resources assigned to the Health Secretary have doubled, while the amount allocated for Popular Insurance has risen from $16 to $48 billion pesos. “I am convinced that Mexico will only be a more equitable, fairer country when every Mexican has guaranteed, quality medical care," he stated. The President announced that the Hospital he opened in this municipality involved over $50 million pesos in investment from his administration and will benefit the northeast and east region of Michoacán. He added that this General Hospital, which he suggested should be called the Bicentennial Hospital, will have six specialties: Pediatrics, gyneco-obstetrics, internal medicine, surgery, anesthesiology and dentistry, in addition to traumatology, since it is located in the middle of the Mexico-Guadalajara highway. “If we go on like this, to celebrate the Bicentennial, by 2011, Mexico will be one of the few countries in the world to have achieved universal health coverage," he explained.

Mexico is going to accomplish public universal health care by 2011

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I've deleted the following text from the "Americas" section:

????? Mexico has Universal Health care for the children who were born since January 5th, 2007...please do not delete this information, just edit it. read the info here http://www.esmas.com/noticierostelevisa/mexico/593939.html

The tone is non-encyclopedic, and since the source isn't in English, it's impossible for a non-Spanish speaker to verify. If this information is correct (and I have no reason to believe that it is not), we need someone who can verify it and (ideally) find an English-language source, and then we need to rework the text to make it more encyclopedic. Depending on how much information is available, it may be appropriate to create a new subsection for Mexico.

Why is this article a map of the world?

Read the article on the police. Is this article about how the police are 'implemented' in every country in the world and which countries don't have police? I'm no expert on state run/mandated healthcare, but I'd love to know about the different types of implementation, history of implementation, a link to an article 'arguements for state healthcare' and 'arguements against state healthcare'. But 3/4'th's of this article is dedicated to a checklist of countries. Another big chunk is dedicated to the argument around implementation of universal health care in the united states.

Though the templates are a step forward! If we could only get more encyclopedic content in there.--70.143.64.199 (talk) 06:30, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Blocking request for User:LincolnSt

Editors may wish to be aware that I have today placed a blocking request on User:LincolnStfor perisitently vilolating the spirit of editorial co-operation, for demonstrating bias in his edits, for depleting the usefulness of WP articles on health care to its readers and for making changes so rapidly that they seem to be planned aforethought and dumped on the editing community. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incidents#Blocking_request__User:LincolnSt for examples and to express your thoughts if you have any.--Hauskalainen (talk) 08:32, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

History of universal health care

Bismarck's "Sozialgetzgebung" created universial health care in Germany in 1883. So the NHS part is revisionist crap. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.246.223.47 (talk) 10:49, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hauskalainen, you have not argued anything in the talk page. An editor associated with you, Cosmic Cowboy (talk · contribs), has already received last warning from administrators.LincolnSt (talk) 11:55, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Lacking info on Universal Health Care in Taiwan

It is a known fact that Universal Health Care is implemented in Taiwan. This article lacks information relating to such. http://www.nhi.gov.tw/english/index.asp

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.15.178.13 (talk) 10:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC) 

More Concept Differentiation Needed between Nationalized Health Insurance versus Nationalized Health Care

Since conecepts of Universal Healthcare include such VASTLY different methodologies as:

1) Universal Health INSURANCE, where the medical system is basically privatized, but everyone in the country/region has health Insurance supervised by the national govt. (example: Canada)

2) Universal Health CARE, where most of the medical staff and facilities are government-run, with privatized services available within the government system if the government subcontracts to them, and where those desiring more specialized/luxurious services can still go through private doctors and facilities if they pay separately for them supplementally (example: England)

3) Other variations of the above where the goverment is involved in assuring that everyone has health insurance AND/OR healthcare services available to them fully or to to some degree via their government

4) Variations in inclusion or exclusion of prescriptions and how they are handled is also a major distinguishing issue

I would sincerely like to see a better introductory paragraph written to help people understand the MAJOR conceptual differences! It is very upsetting that the American public, especially, constantly equates Universal Health Insurance PROPOSALS as being the equivalent of Universal government-hired/run health CARE practitioners/facilities, simply because noone is pointing out THAT THESE ARE 2 ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONCEPTS involved under the topic of Universal Healthcare!

Under nationalized health CARE, your physician works for the government, while under nationalized health INSURANCE, those who fall under that system are usually seeing doctors or going to hospitals that are still in the private business sector - it is their insurance policy that is nationalized.

Could whoever is working on making this section a worthwhile reference for the public on this highly controversial topic - and someone who can write more knowledgably and briefly than myself (sorry about my wordiness) please itemize (as I did in the first paragraph) or in some other way highlight these distinctions, modifying the current first paragraph which presently just casually covers these MAJOR difference in a sort of run-on sentence that minimalizes the importance of recognizing the varying concepts involved in Nationalized Care versus Nationalized Insurance.

Thanks to all who've contributed so far with a goal of making this section useful to all. CentristViewpoint (talk) 02:18, 13 April 2009 (UTC)CentristViewpoint

But the paragraph quite rightly says that UHC is about ensuring everyone has access to their healthcare needs. This has nothing to do with the issues that you are mentioning. All people in Canada or England have access to health care regardless of their financial status. That is the important thing. The issue you seem to want to make seems to imply an assessment that health care provided by government is somehow different from that provided by doctors working for themselves or some privare corporation. That issue is described in some depth in the article socialized medicine. This article is about universality of access to medicine and not the effect of the profit motive in medicine. --Hauskalainen (talk) 07:53, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Most countries that have UHC have a mix of public and private delivery. In Canada, many hospitals are publicly owned. In England, nearly all family doctors are in fact private business that bill the government in much the same way as they do in Canada. So even the understanding you have of what is and what is not in one category or the other is not exactly representative of reality. In Canada and England, doctors and patients together make medical decisions based on evidence and cost effectiveness. Doctors do not have to constantly refer to either an insurance company or the government to determine how to prevent or treat illness. The same rules apply to everyone and the rules are under democratic supervision. Its why politicians in the UK and Canada cannot be paid off by the health insurance industry or the pharmaceutical industry as they are in the United States. The loss of the profit motive and the focus on common sense is the big difference. The only major role of government in both systems is to come up with the money to fund the public health care system. If people want more than the universal public health care system can provide then they pay for it themselves (out of their own pocket) or bully the politicans to provide more for everyone (by raising taxes). It's simple. And it's fair. --Hauskalainen (talk) 08:34, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

I think those of you who are commenting are getting too much into the analysis of the usage of these systems - my point is that there should be some type of highlighting/education of the public via Wikipedia so that they EASILY learn from the article that, in fact, there is a MAJOR difference between nationalized health CARE versus nationalized health INSURANCE, and it is not REQUIRED that a government have nationalized health services at the same time if it has nationalized health insurance - example: Medicare is a nationalized INSURANCE plan where patients see doctors/hospitals in the private sector. I just think that since national health insurance (like Medicare) does NOT require one to also have government-run hospitals/physicians, READERS SHOULD BE HELPED TO UNDERSTAND THIS DISTINCTION - any analysis of whether or not either system works totally aside. CentristViewpoint (talk) 16:39, 14 April 2009 (UTC)CentristViewpoint

As someone who supports Universal Health Insurance yet is at least undecided about Universal Health Care, I would like to agree heartily with CentristViewpoint. well, first, I will agree with some others and say that YES, the philosophy behind the two is similar. Both programs assert that healthcare is a basic human right. So, you are right in that respect. But the execution is very different. To put it this way, Cuba is a country with Universal Health Care; that is, the government is entirely in charge of health care, which is indeed more typical of a heavily socialist/communist type of option. On the other hand, Universal Health Insurance is an option that basically fits any ideology to the right of communism and to the left of libertarianism. I think the difference is absolutely critical and should be delineated. Please, someone with the knowledge/time to do so, go ahead and inform us.

This article is about UHC which is different from UHI or socialized medicine though both may be routes to achieving UHC. On the issue of insurance, UHI does not really fit the libertarian view as I think libertarians would argue that they should have the right NOT to have health insurance if they don't want it. The opposing view is that a right to life can depend on the right to access to funding for that care (medical or otherwise) that could be very very expensive and the best way to guarantee that right is thru insurance. A child born without limbs for example will need care for the rest of its life. All forms of insurance are about pooling risk.

The argument then becomes what is the best form of insurance. The best pools are large ones where the risks of the high costs of the few are borne by the many. The largest possible pool for a given nation is the pool of the national population where everyone is IN. That is what UHI is.

The problem with sub-optimal sized pools (as in private insurance models) is that low risk people seek to be outside and high risk people seek to be inside making the risk sharing uneven. Worse still, if the insurance is not mutual, there is a further group to consider and that is the people seeking to profit from the managing of the insurance pools. This makes insurers try to keep healthy people in the pool and kick the unhealthy ones out. It is the behavior of the insurers in doing this which is totally against the whole concept of insurance (which is to pool risk by having everyone pay in when they are well so that if they get sick if and when they fall ill and can have access to funding regardless of how much they have paid in). This has led to the private health insurers finding themselves as the most despised element in America's health care system.

UHI avoids this whole problem of picking and choosing to gain the system (whether by the insured or the insurer) by ensuring through law that everyone is IN the scheme from the point of their conception until the day they die. The downside of a national insurance plan is that coverage is the same for everyone. The child of the gas station attendant gets the same access to care as the child of an investment banker or even the president. Some find that an attractive proposition and others may not. There is no right or wrong way and the best solution is for the people to use democratic action to determine how to proceed (whether by government activity as insurance pool manager or by regulating the insurance market or by some combination of the two). In the UK it is possible for the investment banker to buy better care if he is prepared to pay much more. But the investment banker cannot opt out of the national funding pool. This relieves the state of the cost of his expensive treatment even though it breaks the rule on equity of access. In fact though, fewer than one percent of people in the UK actively insure themselves in the private market though a higher number do also have private options thru their employer (about 6 or 7 per cent I believe). I hope that helps to explain it better.--Hauskalainen (talk) 08:31, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Hong Kong

for me it seems that the article about Hong Kong talk more of medicine in Hong Kong than the health care system. if somebody believe it so, please make the necesary changes (if he knows about the health care system).