The statistics on the U.S. and France are consistent with what I would have expected -- both nations being on the high side, with the U.S. higher simply because the quality of treatments, advances in cancer research, and quality of medication are superior in the U.S.
The best evidence of this comes in the form of foreign heads of state and wealthy people from around the world who have the ability to get their medical care anywhere in the world. When people like the late King Hussein of Jordan are facing major life-threatening medical issues, they don't hesitate to hop on a jet and fly to the U.S. for treatment at places like Sloan-Kettering, the Mayo Clinic, the DeBakey Institute, etc.
Yes, I agree. I think that the heads of state/rich people visitation rate is telling.
I observe that when unsavory heads of state don't dare tread in the US, they always go to Paris for treatment (Arafat, the Shah, Idi Amin, etc.).
That is another good marker for comparisons of systems, although again not perfect because there is a "cachet" factor too which is difficult to weight for.
I should like to see the same statistics with the top 10% economic class planed off. I would expect that if the aristocracy were removed, the French system would begin to look better and better.
What France has striven to do is to provide the top care to all...at very great expense (the tradeoff). This is a different thing than Canada and Britain, who have attempted to give affordable care to everybody...at the cost of top-end quality. The Secu is very expensive, but it's good. British Health Service is not very expenseive, but it's mediocre. One of the alarming things about American health care is the wide disparity in it depending on social class.