''SimHealth: The National Health Care Simulation'' is a management simulation video game developed by Thinking Tools and published by

Maxis Maxis is an American video game developer and a Division (business), division of Electronic Arts (EA). The studio was founded in 1987 by Will Wright (game designer), Will Wright and Jeff Braun, and acquired by Electronic Arts in 1997. Maxis is ...

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few op ...

with assistance from the

Markle Foundation Markle Foundation is a New York–based private foundation established in 1927 by American industrialist and financier John Markle and his wife, Mary. Its focus is technology, health care, and national security National security, or natio ...

. It is a simulation of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

healthcare Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

system. The game was released during congressional debates on the

Clinton health care plan The Clinton health care plan of 1993, colloquially referred to as Hillarycare, was an American healthcare reform package proposed by the Presidency of Bill Clinton, Clinton administration and closely associated with the chair of the task force ...

. Due to the complexity of the game, ''SimHealth'' was seen as being very difficult. Armed with none of the

tongue-in-cheek Tongue-in-cheek is an idiom that describes a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner. History The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walte ...

humor that Maxis' prior games were known for, the only real link to the franchise was the ''

SimCity 2000 ''SimCity 2000'' is a City-building game, city-building Simulation game, simulation video game jointly developed by Will Wright (game designer), Will Wright and Fred Haslam of Maxis. It is the successor to ''SimCity (1989 video game), SimCity Cla ...

''-inspired

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

. The game was seen as more serious than other Maxis games. Noel Fritzinger, who with Lyman Orton first conceptualized CommunityViz, says that his inspiration came from seeing ''SimHealth'' and wondering if the same concepts could be applied to real-world

land-use planning Land use planning or ''Land-use regulation'' is the process of regulating the use of land by a central authority. Usually, this is done to promote more desirable social and environmental outcomes as well as a more efficient use of resources. ...

Reception

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American Video game journalism, computer game magazine that was published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 199 ...

''s Keith Schlesinger in June 1994 said that "''SimHealth'' is a trailblazer in the simulations genre, but as a game it has problems". Acknowledging that "it wasn't primarily designed as an entertainment product", he criticized the "not well developed" victory conditions, reporting that he got a high score in one game by "sacrific ngnearly all of the big and small business firms in the country to achieve the win! What kind of a victory is that?" Schlesinger found that adopting an extreme libertarian ideology including ending Medicare and many other government services resulted in almost hands-off victory although "the entire private insurance industry goes bankrupt in the first three months". He nonetheless concluded that "''SimHealth'' offers much at a good price, and in a good cause", and recommended it to those "not too fussy about winning and losing", or wanting to be able to alter the model's 152 assumptions. ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' gave the game a C−, writing, "For a vivid demonstration of just how complex — and boring — the health care crisis is, try spending a few hours with SimHealth, which lets you do what Hillary Clinton couldn't: design a successful national health care system." Paul Starr, a health care policy expert writing for ''

The American Prospect ''The American Prospect'' is a daily online and bimonthly print American political and public policy magazine dedicated to American modern liberalism and Progressivism in the United States, progressivism. Based in Washington, D.C., ''The America ...

'', was critical of the game. He pointed out various factual errors and extensively criticized its community vs. efficiency and liberty vs. equality axes, arguing that these values were not necessarily opposed to each other. He ultimately concluded that game "has no value in assessing health care reform."

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Simhealth 1994 video games DOS games DOS-only games Business simulation games Medical simulation Maxis Sim games Medical video games North America-exclusive video games Video games set in the United States Humanitarian video games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games