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Socialized medicine is a term used to describe and discuss systems of universal health care—that is, medical and hospital care for all at a nominal cost by means of government regulation of health care and subsidies derived from taxation.〔The American Heritage Medical Dictionary, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company〕 Because of historically negative associations with socialism in American culture, the term is usually used pejoratively in American political discourse.〔Paul Burleigh Horton, Gerald R. Leslie, (The Sociology of Social Problems ), 1965, page 59 (cited as an example of a standard propaganda device).〕〔Dorothy Porter, (Health, Civilization, and the State ), Routledge, p. 252: "...what the Americans liked to call 'socialized medicine'..."〕〔Paul Wasserman, Don Hausrath, (Weasel Words: The Dictionary of American Doublespeak ), p. 60: "One of the terms to denigrate and attack any system under which complete medical aid would be provided to every citizen through public funding."〕〔Edward Conrad Smith, New Dictionary of American Politics, p. 350: "A somewhat loose term applied to..."〕 The term was first widely used in the United States by advocates of the American Medical Association in opposition to President Harry S. Truman's 1947 health-care initiative.〔W. Michael Byrd, Linda A. Clayton (2002) ''An American Health Dilemma: Race, medicine, and health care in the United States, 1900-2000'' pp 238 ff.〕〔T.R. Reid, (2009) ''The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care''〕〔http://abcnews.go.com/m/screen?id=8383452&pid=248〕 ==Background== The original meaning was confined to systems in which the government operates health care facilities and employs health care professionals.〔〔Jacob S. Hacker, ("Socialized Medicine: Let's Try a Dose, We're Bound to Feel Better" ), Washington Post, March 23, 2008.〕 This narrower usage would apply to the British National Health Service hospital trusts and health systems that operate in other countries as diverse as Finland, Spain, Israel, and Cuba. The United States' Veterans Health Administration, and the medical departments of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, would also fall under this narrow definition. When used in this way, the narrow definition permits a clear distinction from single payer health insurance systems, in which the government finances health care but is not involved in care delivery. More recently, American conservative critics of health care reform have attempted to broaden the term by applying it to any publicly funded system. Canada's Medicare system and most of the UK's NHS general practitioner and dental services, which are systems where health care is delivered by private business with partial or total government funding, fit this broader definition, as do the health care systems of most of Western Europe. In the United States, Medicare, Medicaid, and the U.S. military's TRICARE fall under this definition. Although, in specific regard to military benefits of a (currently) volunteer military, such care is an owed benefit to a specific group as part of an economic exchange, which muddies the definition yet further. Most industrialized countries, and many developing countries, operate some form of publicly funded health care with universal coverage as the goal. According to the Institute of Medicine and others, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care.〔(Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations ), Institute of Medicine at the National Academies of Science, 2004-01-14, accessed 2007-10-22〕〔(The Case For Single Payer, Universal Health Care For The United States )〕 Jonathan Oberlander, a professor of health policy at the University of North Carolina, maintains that the term is merely a political pejorative that has been defined to mean different levels of government involvement in health care depending on what the speaker was arguing against at the time.〔(Socialized Medicine Belittled on Campaign Trail ) from NPR.〕 The term is often used by conservatives in the U.S. to imply that the privately run health care system would become controlled by the government, thereby associating it (i.e., inaccurately) with socialism, which has negative connotations to some people in American political culture. As such its usage is controversial,〔〔〔〔 and at odds with the views of conservatives in other countries prepared to defend socialized medicine such as Margaret Thatcher.〔http://opinion.publicfinance.co.uk/2009/08/the-end-is-nye/〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Socialized medicine」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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