Spiritualism is a religion that began in the United States and flourished from the 1840s to the 1920s—especially, though by no means exclusively—in English-language countries. By 1897, it is said to have had more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe, mostly drawn from the middle and upper classes. The religion’s distinguishing feature is the belief that the spirits of the dead can be contacted by "mediums," and can therefore provide living people with information about the afterlife.

Developing for a half century without canonical texts or formal organization, the religion attained cohesion by way of widely distributed periodicals, tours by trance lecturers, camp meetings, and the missionary activities of accomplished mediums. Many of the most prominent Spiritualists were women, and most adherents supported radical causes like abolition and women’s suffrage. By the late 1880s the credibility of the movement had weakened, due to widely publicized accusations of fraud, and formal organization began to appear. Spiritualism still exists today, primarily through the form of the Spiritualist Church, though modern organizations have generally rejected more Christian elements and embraced more New Age ideas.

Socialized medicine is a term used primarily in the United States to refer to certain kinds of publicly funded health care. The term is used most frequently, and often pejoratively, in the U.S. political debate concerning health care. Definitions vary, and usage is inconsistent. The term can refer to any system of medical care that is publicly financed, government administered, or both.

Some say the literal meaning is confined to systems in which the government operates health care facilities and employs health care professionals. 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.

Others apply the term more broadly to any publicly funded system. Canada’s Medicare system, most of the UK’s NHS general practitioner and dental services, which are all 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.

Most industrialized countries, and many developing countries, operate some form of publicly funded health care with universal coverage as the goal. According to some sources, the United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care.

The term is often used in the U.S. to evoke negative sentiment toward public control of the health care system by associating it with socialism, which has negative connotations in American political culture. As such its usage is controversial. Some argue that the disadvantages of socialism and communism apply to socialized medicine. A 2008 poll indicates that Americans are sharply divided in their views on socialized medicine, with a large percentage of Democrats holding favorable views, while a large percentage of Republicans hold unfavorable views. Independents tend to somewhat favor it.