Posted on 08/06/2009 7:16:22 PM PDT by Steelfish
AUGUST 7, 2009
France Fights Universal Care's High Cost
By DAVID GAUTHIER-VILLARS
When Laure Cuccarolo went into early labor on a recent Sunday night in a village in southern France, her only choice was to ask the local fire brigade to whisk her to a hospital 30 miles away. A closer one had been shuttered by cost cuts in France's universal health system.
Doctors, trade unions and others have called national protests against French health-care cutbacks this year. One petition signed by prominent physicians said they feared the intent of the reform was to turn health care into a 'lucrative business' rather than a public service. Ms. Cuccarolo's little girl was born in a firetruck.
France claims it long ago achieved much of what today's U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care.
But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.
In recent months, France imposed American-style "co-pays" on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses. "A hospital doesn't need to be money-losing to provide good-quality treatment," President Nicolas Sarkozy thundered in a recent speech to doctors.
And service cuts -- such as the closure of a maternity ward near Ms. Cuccarolo's home -- are prompting complaints from patients, doctors and nurses that care is being rationed. That concern echos worries among some Americans that the U.S. changes could lead to rationing.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
France is waking up perhaps.....but I doubt it.
Ping
This just cant be. The left asssures me that universal health care is working just fine in France!
The government accountants will close all the hospitals in rural and remote areas, but keep them open on ever block in the cities which support the socialists, even as those locales lose population and cease to be productive elements in society.
This is also what has happened in Canada...
Makes perfect sense right? Its like when those people bought their house with giant mortgages that they didn't have the income to cover -- they then managed to squeeze out an extra $2000 a month in electricity bills, credit card bills, and went in to deep financial ruin. Wait -- that can't be -- oh no -- yes -- that is how math works. A negative plus a negative yields a larger negative.
As socialism crumbles right before our eyes, nerobama fiddles
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