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.
We pay for their defense so they can afford it
The US still has the best survival rates for life threatening illnesses and diseases. The Mideast sheiks come to the US when they have them as do Canadians and the rest of the world
We have the most modern surgeries of anywhere.
As to appointments...that depends on where you live in France.
We treat way more people than other countries. If you need immediate care that is what urgent care is for Plus if it is a true emergency that is what ERs are for and 911
The European may handle the common cold better because they give big shots of B vitamins but overall I will take our medical care ANY day if the week
35% is a pretty steep tax rate. Also, did they tell you if you are overweight you can not get a mortgage? Your information is not private.
Has she considered going back to France?
If a socialist system can get somebody else to pick up the short fall then yes socialism works!
We should pay for health insurance based on risk, not based on our income. Then we should have a safety net for those that cannot afford health care - it’s called Medicaid.
I spoke to a woman from Italy, proud as punch of their single-payer system.
Does it cover everything?
“Well, no...but, of course everyone has to have supplemental insurance.”
Here’s an article on the world’s most generous countries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/maps-and-graphics/most-generous-countries-in-the-world/
Note which country is listed
and which country isn’t.
Also note, these are the country’s residents, not the government giving.
Here is a Wiki page on governmental giving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_development_aid_country_donors
When I went to the PDF link in the article.
The USA is rated number 2
France is 81
I don’t want a 35% income tax, especially if that’s the same rate that Bill Gates is paying. He can afford it; I can’t.
Tell it Princess Di.
VAT, yes. And it keeps going up.
All paid up front. All hospitals do the same and are competitive on pricing
That needs to happen here, posted on the internet. As well as an outright ban on "cost shifting".
These are major national provider reforms, hopefully imposed by Tom Price, piloting the DHHS.
I think Di would have a better chance here. France has a system that a patient in an accident has to be stabilized at the scene of the accident before they can be accepted into a hospital.
They should have made an exception for Diana. She died on the roadside!!
Yes, compare France to Texas to get equal sized systems.
Frances healthcare insurance is paid out of 35% national tax. You pay Dr , insurance remburses you 70% to 100%. If you cannot pay or you have a longterm condition all healthcare is free. You can choose any Dr and any treatment you want. They do not have the wait times of say Britain. Privatized healthcare in France is far less expensive than US healthcare. French healthcare is usually rated number one when all people are considered.
The US has great healthcare but is most expensive in world, 17% of GDP. Those who can’t afford to pay have Medicare for the old, Medicaid for the poor and Chip for children. If you are not rich or poor or have employer paid insurance with high deductible you don’t want to get sick you will be making payments for rest of your life.
These numbers are for the citizens and not the government.
The wiki page was added last second, before I posted
The French have a hybrid system with both public and private facilities and services. It’s a complicated system and in recent years they’ve had problems controlling costs but for the most part it works. A market based fully private system is obviously the superior choice but if the United States is going to go down the road of socialist healthcare then something like the French system would probably be the least bad approach. The worst would be an English style fully public single payer system.
It really is a shame that we can’t have a healthcare system that’s consistent with our founding principles, but that’s what happens when the left spends the better part of a century marching through your institutions.
We were briefly in France last summer on a tour. Our tour guide said they paid 56% in taxes.
Ha! I was waiting for that shoe to drop!
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