Question: Who has the world oldest universal health care system?
About the article "Germany", section "Health".

Candidate passages:
The Moldovan state has a universal health care system.  
France has a system of universal health care largely financed by government through a system of national health insurance.
It is consistently ranked as one of the best in the world. 
Iceland has a universal public health system paid largely from taxation with local municipalities delivering health care services in the same way as other Scandinavian countries.
Iceland’s entire population has equal access to health care services. 
Universal health care — sometimes referred to as universal health coverage, universal coverage, or universal care — usually refers to a health care system which provides health care and financial protection to all its citizens.
It is organized around providing a specified package of benefits to all members of a society with the end goal of providing financial risk protection, improved access to health services, and improved health outcomes.
Universal health care is not a one-size-fits-all concept; nor does it imply coverage for all people for everything.
Universal health care can be determined by three critical dimensions: who is covered, what services are covered, and how much of the cost is covered. 
Health inequalities can be defined as differences in health status or in the distribution of health determinants between different population groups.
Health inequalities are in many cases related to access to health care.
In industrialized nations, health inequalities are most prevalent in countries that have not implemented a universal health care system, such as the United States.
Because the US health care system is heavily privatized, access to health care is dependent upon one’s economic capital; Health care is not a right, it is a commodity that can be purchased through private insurance companies (or that is sometimes provided through an employer).
The way health care is organized in the U.S. contributes to health inequalities based on gender, socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity.
As Wright and Perry assert, “social status differences in health care are a primary mechanism of health inequalities”.
In the United States, over 48 million people are without medical care coverage.
This means that almost one sixth of the population is without health insurance, mostly people belonging to the lower classes of society.
While universal access to health care may not completely eliminate health inequalities, it has been shown that it greatly reduces them.
In this context, privatization gives individuals the ‘power’ to purchase their own health care (through private health insurance companies), but this leads to social inequality by only allowing people who have economic resources to access health care.
Citizens are seen as consumers who have a ‘choice’ to buy the best health care they can afford; in alignment with neoliberal ideology, this puts the burden on the individual rather than the government or the community.
In countries that have a universal health care system, health inequalities have been reduced.
In Canada, for example, equity in the availability of health services has been improved dramatically through Medicare.
People don’t have to worry about how they will pay health care, or rely on emergency rooms for care, since health care is provided for the entire population.
However, inequality issues still remain.
For example, not everyone has the same level of access to services.
Inequalities in health are not, however, only related to access to health care.
Even if everyone had the same level of access, inequalities may still remain.
This is because health status is a product of more than just how much medical care people have available to them.
While Medicare has equalized access to health care by removing the need for direct payments at the time of services, which improved the health of low status people, inequities in health are still prevalent in Canada This may be due to the state of the current social system, which bear other types of inequalities such as economic, racial and gender inequality.
A lack of health equity is also evident in the developing world, where the importance of equitable access to healthcare has been cited as crucial to achieving many of the Millennium Development Goals.
Health inequalities can vary greatly depending on the country one is looking at.
Inequalities in health are often associated with socioeconomic status and access to health care.
Health inequities can occur when the distribution of public health services is unequal.
For example, in Indonesia in 1990, only 12% of government spending for health was for services consumed by the poorest 20% of households, while the wealthiest 20% consumed 29% of the government subsidy in the health sector.
Access to health care is heavily influenced by socioeconomic status as well, as wealthier population groups have a higher probability of obtaining care when they need it.
A study by Makinen et al.
(2000) found that in the majority of developing countries they looked at, there was an upward trend by quintile in health care use for those reporting illness.
Wealthier groups are also more likely to be seen by doctors and to receive medicine.