Socialized medicine

Socialized medicine is a derogatory term for public health systems, i.e. government-run hospitals and other healthcare providers. Supporters of this approach refer to it as National Health Services ("universal - for all the residents in the country- healthcare").

The majority of developed countries[?] have socialized medical systems. For some examples, see the British and another National Health Service systems (i.e., medicare (Canada) and Medicare (Australia)).

The role of Administration in healthcare provision is however a source of continued debate where opinions diverge sharply. The term "socialized medicine" is used mainly in the United States by people who believe that such systems provide inferior-quality care.

There is a distinction between financing and performing (providing) healthcare. It is perfectly possible that one of them is private and the other public. For instance, United States healthcare for the elderly, also known as Medicare, is financed from general taxation, but often provided by privately owned hospitals. IN some systems, patients can also take private health insurance, but choose to receive care at public hospitals, if allowed by the private insurer[?].

From the inception[?] of the NHS model (1948), public hospitals in the U.K. have included "amenity beds" which would typically be siderooms fitted more comfortably, and private wards in some hospitals where for a fee more amenity is provided. These are predominantly used for surgical treatment, and operations are generally carried out in the same operating theatres as the NHS work and by the same personnel. These amenity beds doesn´t exist in another National Health Service, like the spanish one, between others.

A political oscillation occurs between separating private practice out into separate hospitals versus preferring to keep the consultants actually in the NHS hospital. Currently (in 2003) this favours separation and incompatibility.

From time to time the NHS pays for private hospitals (aranged hospitals) to take on surgical cases the NHS facility currently does not have the quantitative-capacity for. This work is usually, but not always, done by the same doctors in private hospitals.