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.
Now I understand how France is the world’s ecconomic powerhous and in the forefront of medical technology development.
Cannot comment on France. However, a friend from the UK waited for a minor surgical procedure until on a business trip to Germany. He had no confidence in the UK’s NIH and Germany provides quality care to all. I know Taiwan has good government healthcare.
Point being healthcare varies widely by nation. Another friend who lives in Brazil said they call their government provided healthcare “the butcher shop” and folks will take out loans to cover costs rather than go to the butcher shop for treatment.
Very well put and I am afraid you are correct.
The French (I believe the German system is similar!) would be the least bad of all the “politically possible” choices.
Puzzled
5.2. French Income Tax Rates
Income Share Tax Rate
Between €9,711 - €26,818 14%
Between €26,819 - €71,898 30%
Between €71,899 - €152,260 41%
Above €151,261 45%
Did Macron pay his 35% or has he reduced his reported exposure (visibility) to the tax collector?
“These prices are bargains as compared to what hospitals charge in the US.”
That’s the truth of the matter. Like you stated about Japan, catastrophic insurance makes the most sense, with almost everything else being paid for out of pocket. Prices here seem to run about 80-90% higher than many other countries.
England
It is an emphasis on treating younger, productive citizens and less concern on the expense of ailments associated with old age.
Cost shifting.
yes, governments are corrupt
we must be vigilant with government
Here’s a link to a page
https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2016/medicine#sorting=rank+region=+country=+faculty=+stars=false+search=
Listing the top med schools in the world
The US has FAR and AWAY the most.
15 schools rated 5 star
France has ZERO
This “friend” must be a naive agent of socialist propaganda. What absolute BS, omission, distortion and over simplification. I hope they stay in their utopia, france.
It depends on what you mean by “superior”.
The most important thing to remember about so-called “health care systems” is that 95% of their customers (a/k/a “voters”) are either worried but not sick, or only a little sick and in need of a simple remedy. As a group, these people share two features: They can be cared for much more cheaply than they are in the US now, and they (again, as a group) do not want to pay when served.
The care of this 95% in Europe is CLEARLY superior to the US system, in cost, in outcome, and in satisfaction. This has been shown in studies over and over again, so many times as to be indisputable.
The American system excels with innovation and the care of complex, morbid illnesses. But we pay for this by overcharging most people most of the time. The people don’t like this, and they seek solutions from their politicians,
No.
We pay for bad-debt and charity-care*..."by overcharging most people most of the time."
*Right straight from the Maine Hospital Association.
Japan has a first class medical system and is arguably the best in the world for socialized medicine models-- reasonable costs, quick treatment, one of the best ratios of MDs to patients in the world. But they do a lot of things our homegrown socialists wouldn't like-- no single payer (government is the insurer of last resort, not first), no unlimited treatment for those who engage in substance abuse, sexual deviancy and other favorite liberal behaviors and everybody has to pays something-- very reasonable by American standards but still enough to remind you that medical care is not free. They are also a major medical tourism destination for everything from plastic surgery to getting a pearl sewn in near the tip of your penis for a better "ride".
But they also have little medical research and innovation compared to the USA. So my friend built a $10 million dollar company based on importing American medical innovations to Japan and selling them to a large client list of doctors and dentists. He's been so successful that he is about to spin off one unit for his son to run after he completes his MBA at an American university.
My rule of thumb has always been: If someone tells you how great something is, and it sounds like wonderful Utopia...it IS Utopia.
And Utopia doesn’t exist.
I did my personal taxes recently. Due to Obamacare I messed up and had to reconcile. I was never sent a form 1095-a from the marketplace, which the IRS requested. The marketplace refused to let me get my 1095-a easily.
I also had to fill out a 8962, it was 2 pages long, but the instructions were 18 pages long.
Over two months of healthcare from the marketplace. Pathetic, will never use it again.
The reason why these systems work well in France (and in other places) is that they are relatively small systems serving a more homogenous group of people (or were until recently). The larger the system gets, the more it breaks down, as is happening in the UK right now.
Also, if you have a lot of immigration that taxes the system (see UK). The more people you have not working and paying into the system, the more fragile it is.
You also need a very high degree of regulation of doctors and other health workers and of hospitals etc. to make a single payer system work. Otherwise you get rampant corruption and fraud (see our Medicare system). The larger the bureaucracy the more waste and fraud you have (see UK see our Medicare system and VA system).
What might work is a State by State system (not Federal) where you have to pay into a State health tax system for 5 years until you are eligible for “free” healthcare.
If we had real insurance, that was ONLY catastrophic insurance, and everyone paid out of pocket for routine health care and meds, then you could also have a robust ‘single payer’ system.
With the system we have now there is so much waste and fraud in the system because of the humongous bureaucracy.
There is not perfect system. The best system (not perfect) would be free market where doctors and hospitals and drug companies have to compete.
What we had before were State sanctioned insurance monopolies and also huge government protected monopolies in Pharma. That was kept in place with Obamacare (and I guess now in the new proposal). This cannot work.
‘Single payer’ could work on a smaller scale ... or with massive amounts of oversight. Think of it this way. Our Defense system is ‘single payer’. And we have large entrenched special interests who lobby government for defense contracts, and a lot of waste and fraud. We could spend probably half what we spend now on defense and still have the strongest most capable military in the world.
The same would be true of a ‘single payer’ medical care system. It would be huge and unwieldy with an ever growing bureaucracy IMO. Otherwise, I have no problem with the concept as long as everyone pitched in. It’s the size and powerful entrenched interests that would be created that I have a problem with. Which we have now but it would be worse.
“Your friend doesn’t know what she’s talking about - or is a liar.”
The person who posted it is FOS. Same snarky BS that all the “American medicine sucks” crowd yaps about all the time.
A friend, worked and lived in London for many years.Thought he would save on health insurance, with it being ‘free’.
His coworkers quickly disabused him of any such thoughts.
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