Difference between revisions of "Socialized medicine"

Revision as of 19:26, April 14, 2009

Socialized medicine is health care as supplied by a monopolistic or heavily-subsidized and regulated universal health care system.

Pierre Lemieux wrote:

Health care has to be rationed either by the market or by political and bureaucratic processes. The latter are no more just than the former. We often forget that people who have difficulty making money in the market are not necessarily better at jumping queues in a socialized system.[1]

Loss of personal incentive to find better service or products

Lack of competion in health care

Loss of incentives to create new drugs/treatments

Loss of personal income to the government

Loss of health care quality

Loss of privacy

Loss of liberty

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-'''Socialized medicine''' is a [[universal health care]] system provided by the government either through national insurance, as in France, or directly through a state National Health Service (with private competition), as in the UK. These two models of universal health care are dominant and very few countries have a complete state monopoly of health care.
+'''Socialized medicine''' is [[health care]] as supplied by a [[monopolistic]] or heavily-[[subsidized]] and regulated [[universal health care]] system.
 [[Pierre Lemieux]] wrote:
 :Health care has to be rationed either by the market or by political and bureaucratic processes. The latter are no more just than the former. We often forget that people who have difficulty making money in the market are not necessarily better at jumping queues in a socialized system.[http://www.theadvocates.org/freeman/8903lemi.html]
-==Advantages==
+==Loss of personal incentive to find better service or products==
-Because state run health systems do not need to run at a profit, have higher credit worthiness than private companies, are not driven by commercial aims, and have more funds available to them than private hospitals, they are generally able to provide more health services at a lower cost than the market would. Universal health care systems are also able to provide equal health treatment for those who would typically be unable to afford it, or would not be offered private health coverage due to a chronic illness.
+==Lack of competion in health care==
-Universal health care also dodges the "information imbalance" which makes private health insurance artificially expensive for the consumers: because any private individual knows better than the insurer about his or her state of personal health (and have an incentive to hide or deny any health problems they have), insurers have to treat everyone as being unhealthy and thus charge a higher premium. This higher premium drives away consumers who are fairly healthy and think they can do without coverage, which further exacerbates the problem (as only unhealthy people get coverage the insurer sees average payout costs per customer rising and has to start denying claims or raising premiums again).
+==Loss of incentives to create new drugs/treatments==
-==Disadvantages==
+==Loss of personal income to the government==
-National health care systems are hugely expensive to the government (though are typically cheaper per capita than private systems). Furthermore the quality of care can be lower than private systems due to the excess demand and strain it faces. Some people are also concerned that it leads to excessive individual dependence on the government (though arguably this is better than not getting any coverage at all and dying young).
+==Loss of health care quality==
+==Loss of privacy==
+==Loss of liberty==
 [[Category:Medicine]]
 [[Category:Socialism]]