socialized medicine

(redirected from Socialized health care)
Also found in: Dictionary, Medical.
Related to Socialized health care: Universal health care

socialized medicine,

publicly administered system of national health care. The term is used to describe programs that range from government operation of medical facilities to national health-insurance plans. In 1948, Great Britain passed the National Health Service Act that provided free physician and hospital services for all citizens. The system was later amended, now charging a small fee for the filling of prescriptions and the purchasing of eyeglasses and dentures; it is funded jointly by a health-insurance tax and by the national treasury. Doctors are salaried by the government and receive an additional allotment per patient and for the performance of special services. Sweden maintains a compulsory health-insurance plan that provides for income compensation, hospital treatment, most of the physician's fee, and part of the cost of medicines. Maternity benefits are provided for expectant women. A large percentage of Israel's medical care is provided by the Histadrut, the national labor union. A number of private welfare organizations also provide care, and the armed forces maintain a number of military hospitals whose services are widely used since many citizens of Israel are military veterans. Canada has a federally sponsored system of medical insurance with voluntary participation on the part of each province; the system is funded by taxes and contributions from the government. The United States is the only major Western country without some form of socialized medical care. However, it does sponsor MedicareMedicare,
..... Click the link for more information.
, a federally administered program for those over 65, and MedicaidMedicaid,
..... Click the link for more information.
, a federally funded program of medical care for the poor that is administered by the individual states. Veterans have access to Veterans Health Administration facilities; care is free or partially subsidized, depending on whether injuries and disabilities are service connected.
References in periodicals archive ?
Everyone knows that socialized health care means you walt and walt and walt--six months for an MRI, a year for a hip replacement, and so on.
Economic miracle, immigrant and tourist destination, highly skilled intellectual workers, Bono and U2, Seamus Heaney and The Faith Healer, socialized health care, exploding youth culture, designer hotels, profiles in Vogue as surely as The Wall Street Journal: no longer the sentimental dream of Irish America but the very model of a modern social democracy.
Remarkably, the father will have none of it: "I voted for socialized health care," he proclaims, "and I'm prepared to suffer the consequences
Canada, which boasts a socialized health care system like Israel's, still had a ppp of $2,931.
8) reissues that old argument that socialized health care, as represented by other industrialized nations, is cheaper when figured as cost per capita ("Free Market Won't End Crisis," July 15, 2002, p.
Professor Boan's article argues the main points of socialized health care that have been advocated from the beginning: universal health coverage for all.
Other measures in the Socialist Party platform include: campaign finance reform, a maximum wage of four to ten times the minimum, socialized health care, free child care and elder care, free college education, the legalization of marijuana, a 50 percent cut in military spending, abolition of the CIA and NATO, more extensive mass transit, support for animal rights and organic farming, strong environmental protections, and equal rights for all racial and ethnic minorities, women, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.
Instead, we should preserve and expand these realms of genuinely socialized health care.
policy and a socialized health care system in another nation.
The undesirability of either a fully privatized or totally socialized health care service is not the major dispute, but rather the balance between these two components.
The United Kingdom has the best-known socialized health care system, with good points and bad; perhaps its best lesson is that, with any standardized system, rationing must be accepted.

Encyclopedia browser ?