Posted on 05/06/2017 5:43:53 AM PDT by PeaRidge
My friend, who lived in France for five years, and now in US, thinks our new health system is not only unnecessarily inadequate, but unsophisticated.
She says that in France that:
You get immediate appointments
Immediate treatment
World class results
Mideast sheiks go there
Relatively low cost meds (if you have to pay at all)
Latest improvements
All Free
To pay for this, she says All French citizens pay taxes.
Everyone pays the same percentage tax....35%
One page tax filing
To fellow Freepers......truth please.
I have a friend who had a sudden gall duct blockage in Paris, and was admitted to a french hospital. It was filthy, the guy in the next bed’s urine bag broke and the nurses never cleaned it up. Also he was in severe pain but e ven when they finally acknowledged that they didn’t give him pain meds other than aspirin. After three days they finally diagnosed him with a machine in a room with one bare light bulb, as he was flat on his back in severe pain. He ended up being transferred to the American hospital there where he was promptly given pain meds until the blockage passed. He told them about his experience in the french hospital and the staff told him they don’t give out strong pain meds in the french hospital because they’re too expensive. True story.from about 3 years ago.
When the Mid-East types come....they come to the private clinics or facilities with the top-notch doctors, and they stay for an extended period. The chief reason they pick the European private clinics is the lesser chance of an infection situation. You will find a number of clinics in France, Germany, and the Netherlands where they pay for the better services.
I thought Single Payer meant the Doctors work for the Government like in the VA System (or in Cuba).
Medicaid and Medicare Doctors “Bill” the Government for their Services, they don’t get a Paycheck signed by the U.S. or State Treasury.
Some Doctors choose to not take those Patients.
Just sayin’...
35% Tax rate...35% Unemployment rate. Sounds Tres Bien....
>I dont know why this is even controversial. Either the Democrats are dumb as rocks or else seek they so hate people in the middle that they dont care what happens to them.
They’d prefer that the middle class dies since we seldom vote for them.
>Thnaks. I happened to talk yesterday with a friend from Romania. He says private hospital do the same there. They have a menu with the prices. All money is paid up front. These prices are bargains as compared to what hospitals charge in the US.
The US healthcare system is 90% socialist(IE has no market pricing system). The fact that hospitals don’t have upfront pricing here is a violation of the Sherman act that’s for someone is ignored.
Remember the Will Smith Interview when he was told about France wanting to raise the Top Tax Rate to 75%?
He was shocked and said “God Bless America”. LOL
Well, they work for whoever pays them. In the absence of insurance...In Canada, private insurance was banned and doctors accepting other payment was a criminal act.
Medicaid and Medicare Doctors Bill the Government for their Services, they dont get a Paycheck signed by the U.S. or State Treasury.
Well, that "government" check had better have somebody's signature on it.
Some Doctors choose to not take those Patients
Exactly, as they pay pennies on the dollar, often not even covering the provider's costs. They want the commercial rates paid by the carriers....while they still exist.
If you take private insurers away, make them illegal (as the RATs are desperately attempting to do) then government programs are all that will be left, and you already know how well they work.
The French, and liberals, define compassion as the number of people they provide welfare to.
Americans define compassion as the number of people who do NOT need welfare.
Sad that so many French need welfare.
I lived in Paris for 3 years, came down with a disease they didnt find for months even though the symptoms were obvious and growing (physically)-they kept telling me I had a throat infection. I went to my Dr in June, was told she would finally order an ultrasound on my throat BUT there were only TWO units in the entire hospital and they were booked-I could get an appt for it in SEPTEMBER.
Frightened, I picked up the phone and called our family Dr in Atlanta. He listened and said it sounded like thryroid disease—Hashimoto’s to be exact. He asked when I was coming home, told him I was making the arrangements as soon as we hung up. He said “ come straight from the airport, I will tell the staff I want to see you the minute you walk in the door”. One week later I am in his office, he makes an appt for me to see a specialist surgeon the NEXT DAY, I go to him and he confirms it is HD. One week after that I have surgery to remove my thyroid. The surgeon told me it was so bad it was like “digging out glue”. One week after that the biopsy came in—CANCER NODULES were in the thyroids and if I had waited until Sept for treatment I would have already develeoped throat cancer.
France is the tranquilizer capital of the world. Per capita, more French are on tranquilizers than anywhere else in the world.
Pharmacists can question Dr RX so if you drop off a RX and the Pharmacist doesnt think you need it, they will call and argue with the Dr who prescribed. This happened to me multiple times (I was American, Dr was British so I suspect that had something to do with it too)
Your friend has never been seriously ill or she wouldnt think the French system is so great. It is only great if you have nothing else to compare it to
France used to be called womb to tomb socialism. Is that still the case?
I heard a few years back that the National Holiday Month no longer exists because of the parasites draining the social coffers.
About a two decades ago a Frenchie I know told me that in France just about every one is equally poor. But that there were great opportunities to receive education, stable work, and reasonable health “maintenance” care; but that taxes were astronomical in order to have these benefits. He was generally contented but now with the cultural compromises being realized, I wonder if that is still the outlook by those who watch socialistic benefits erode before their very eyes.
Yep - saw them 20 years ago and their women sat meekly in the corner while the men put their bare feet up on the coffee table (!?).
PS - sorry to hear about your daughter.
My problem exactly with Republican tax plans. On the whole, I totally totally totally agree that taxes to the feds should be LOW.
Spending, at the federal level, should be for CONSTITUTIONAL reasons. The welfare state at the federal level should be eliminated. States, if they think their people need welfare, are free to distribute any tax monies they collect.
*But* when it comes to federal taxes (and, in my state) if ONE THING would help EVERYONE care about the way government operates would be if ALL CITIZENS paid *something*.
And I agree that it ought to be a percentage of one’s income—on an even basis.
Ben Carson’s analogy of 10% to the LORD is a good one (I know others have used it). But look, pick the percentage—20%? If you earn $1000 a year, you pay $200 to the gubmint. If you earn $10,000 a year, you pay $2000.
And so on.
Even the poor would pay attention to the waste, the unfair distribution of monies to those unwilling to work AND those who are crony capitalists. Welfare at both ends of the economic spectrum will kill the working person.
And they take the absolute p***, as the Brits say, by engaging in high-risk behavior to a wildly disproportionate degree - drugs, alcohol, pregnancy, sexual assaults, and, of course, knife and gun wounds.
“When she got Home she went to see her Primary Care Doctor. She showed him the Medication and the Doctor threw it away and gave her something else. He said the Medication she was given in Sweden was used to treat Horses”
They shoot horses; don’t they?
The massive "cost drivers" are bad-debt...people who don't pay their co-pays, and charity-care....people who have no intention of paying anything for their "free healthcare". They are the parasites, the denizens of the ER waiting room, sucking up the resources of the most expensive facilities in the hospital.
And yes, in addition to what you said, the governments are indeed deadbeat debtors.
Its an incontrovertible fact that people are always more careful about spending their own money than someone elses money
And that's exactly why the medical-welfare-parasites should be required a level of co-pay....even if it's only 20 bucks. That would likely curtail "over utilization".
That, plus they should not be allowed access to the ER, unless they are having a medical emergency. They should be "triaged" to another building....the free clinic....staffed by short-tempered veteran nurses and nurse practitioners.
If you really want prices to come down, the share that the individual pays must go up.
Actually, under the ACA, the current high deductibles and copays are pretty steep...even unrealistic, but you are correct, patients need some "skin in the game". After all, that's what HSAs are all about.
Not only is France among the countries that avoid / ban GMO, the French evidently have a more balanced diet than Americans do.
French paradox
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