The three main health care systems are socialist, capitalist and communist system. Decisions on which of the three systems to follow mostly depends on the kind of governance in the land. Arguably, the socialist health system is the best of the three health system.
This is because it ensures all the people in the republic get cheap or even free health care. Health is one of the basic necessities of a human being and therefore it would be such that majority of the people in the society are able to access it.
According to the principles of World Health Organization, everyone should be able to access good quality health care. This will be well taken care of in scenario of a socialist health system because it is a government policy to have everyone incorporated in this system.
Considering that there is a big number of people who cannot afford expensive health care, socialist health system offer a good alternative system of health submission. This means even the poor in the society have their health issues well taken care of.
The socialist system is also non-discriminatory in nature, in that even the minority in the society as well as women and children will enjoy available and accessible health care. Economic accessibility is one factor of the socialist system that makes it more suitable than the other systems of health care (Bowling and Ebrahim 17).
The government may introduce a flat rate that is affordable to the people in the society this means that all the people are well taken care and medicine is cheaper to them.
The fact that due to the low cost of health system in the society few people will be willing to invest in the health sector is an added benefit because people who may just invest in the health sector just to gain profits without the desire to put people’s heath demands first will be minimized.
In turn it means that only the people who are conscious about people’s health are in the health system. Ownership of factors of production is controlled by the government in a socialist set up, which means that the government controls the production of the medicine.
The centralization of the system ensures that quality and amount is well controlled, which may not be the case in other systems, for example, the capitalist where profits gain is the main driving force. Issues of corruption are also cut out in socialist system because every citizen has a say on to what he/she expects of the system and the system is not controlled by a selected few.
Finally, this system can be of benefit to get statistics about the general population that may be beneficial to their planning, for example, a Maternity and Child Welfare Law adopted in Japan helps the government know the number of birth of children, since every pregnancy has to be registered. This system therefore provides the administration with useful information for the purpose of shaping health and child care policy (Spender and Cheris 964).
Many countries have adopted this system and modified it to meet their countries mode of operation. This has led to reforms in these countries, like the introduction of compulsory health insurance legislation in Russian in 1991. The American affordable health care Act signed into law in 2009 has its bases on the principle of the socialist system that gives every citizen a chance to get quality health care at affordable costs.
However, this health care system has its limitations. Paying of high taxes by the public is one of the main disadvantages as this system calls for the administration to spend so much to support it. There is also problem of distribution of resources, and if not well controlled, this system may be a problem since some areas may have an under production, while others face overproduction.
Works Cited
Bowling, Ann and Ebrahim, Shah. “Handbook of health research methods: investigation, measurement and analysis.” Berkshire: McGraw-Hill International. 2005. Print.
Spender, Dale and Cheris, Kramarae. “Routledge International Encyclopedia of Women: Education: Health to Hypertension.” Routledge: Routledge, 2000. Print.