RE: Does anyone know of a country who had socialized medicine.......
Two points:
1. The failure of anyone to go back to a free market system would not necessarily signify satisfaction with socialized medicine. Governments crave power, and controllling health care gives them a huge power opportunity which government types are always going to be loath to give up. Have you ever seen a bureaucrat willingly give up power in ANY area?
2. But you never really get to the argument in point 1, because to answer your question directly, point 2 is that there are in fact a large number of countries that have moved, and are moving now, to incorporate more and more free market elements into what had been socialized systems.
France is probably the model that most of them are emulating. The French health care system is neither single-provider nor single-payer, something which neither Michael Moore nor numerous other "experts" that I have seen commenting on health care policy seem to understand. France has never had a purely socialized system, but it is my understanding that what they have today has moved significantly toward more of a market system than what they had previously. The French expect their "free" system (relative term, since nothing is actually "free" in their system, everything comes with a copay) to leave people stranded in queues, and they expect those people to use private care freely and often to get around the queues. That's one way they control costs on the "free" side.
UK is an excellent example of a country which had full socialized medicine (the single-provider NHS) and is now moving toward more private care alternatives. They aren't as far along in that direction as the French are, and one problem they have is that private care is still not used as often as in France and, with fewer economies of scale, private care remains much more expensive in UK than in France.
Canada has historically been the extreme example of a single-payer socialized system, but the Canadians are starting to implement some private-care options. I have read that their dental system either is now, or soon will be, have a private care option for 100% of services, but I can't verify that statement. If the US adopts the provisions of the house health care bill, Canadians won't have the option of using the US to dodge queues, and I would anticipate that Canada would then move very quickly toward allowing private care alternatives across the board.
This is pretty much the dominant trend in those countries which have had some degree of socialized medicine. The hybrid or two-tier system is where they are headed, some obviously faster than others.
The bottom line is that neither a full market-based system (which we don't actually have) nor a fully socialized system is without faults. I believe a hybrid system, with tax-funded universal basic care (with queueing for more advanced or specialized care) and a robust private care system as an alternative to queueing, is the most workable model. This is the direction that those countries which have had more or less comprehensive socialized medicene are now heading. I believe we should learn from them and go straight there, rather than spending 50 years to learn that socialized medicine doesn't work.
So, in answer to your question, there may not be anyone who has come all the way back to a US-style system, but there is clearly a widespread movement toward hybrid systems which attempt to combine the best of both--and if you're moving from a socialized system to that, then you are clearly moving TOWARD a US-style system.
(This post was last modified: 07-20-2009 05:09 PM by Owl 69/70/75.)
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