A jaundiced look at the world we live in.
In all the talk about healthcare being “socialized medicine,” there has been precious little effort made to DEFINE the difference between, for example, “socialized medicine” systems and single-payer systems.
The best description of the difference I’ve come across is this:
Those of us who teach public administration and policy proceed on the (generally unarticulated) assumption that policy debates are “evidence-based”–that is, that parties to a policy discussion begin with a general agreement about the nature and subject of the argument–should we pass this bill, which will do X or Y? Should we contract out this function to a for-profit or non-profit entity?
Is it “déjà vu all over again” in the health care debate?