Medical care and health under state socialism

This paper derives a conception of ideal socialist and communist medical care and health policy. This model is based on a review of Marxist and allied critiques of capitalist medical care policy and on theoretical work on socialist social policy. The ideal conception, operationalized in terms of 16 criteria, is then applied to a review of medical care and health policy in the Soviet Union. Hungary, and Poland. It is concluded that medical care policy in all three countries exhibits very few characteristics of socialist medical care. The possibility (for the moment repressed) provided by the Solidarity movement in Poland of a new development toward a more genuine socialist medical care and health policy is also described.