David P. Hamilton : French Healthcare is the World's Best
Letters from France III:
The French healthcare system
is the best in the world
By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / June 1, 2011
PARIS -- President Obama dropped the healthcare “public option” like a hot potato at the very onset of last year’s debate in the U.S. over reforming healthcare. Despite polls of average citizens to the contrary, Obama asserted there wasn’t enough support for it, meaning that there wasn’t enough support among the economic elite, health insurance corporations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, and other medical capitalists, and hence, not enough support among members of Congress beholden to those interests. Let’s take a look at what they’re so afraid of.
The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the French health care system as the best in the world. The U.S. system ranks 37th. The complex details of the procedures used to determine these rankings are available on the WHO website. The WHO has hundreds of rankings on health related topics as specific as beer consumption by country. The U.S. fails to distinguish itself favorably in any of them.
Of particular note is the ranking by total health care expenditures as a percentage of the GNP where the U.S. at 15.4% leads the world, only exceeded by the Marshall Islands and far ahead of any other major industrialized nation.
Hence, while the U.S. health care system produces mediocre results, it is the most expensive. For France, with a system rightists consider far too expensive to maintain, the corresponding figure is 11.4%. Different studies show this disparity even greater, at 16% and 10.7%. In the U.S., $6,400 is spent annually per capita on health care costs while the average French person spends barely over half that amount, $3,300.
Other health care assessments tell much the same story. Infant mortality is a principal indicator of the quality of health care. In France, it is 3.9 per 1,000 live births. In the U.S., the rate is nearly 80% higher at 7.0. Life expectancy is 79.4 years in France, two years more than in the U.S. Death from respiratory disease, often preventable, is 31.2 per 100,000 in France while in the US it is 61.5, despite the fact that nearly twice the percentage of French adults smoke tobacco compared to the U.S.
France also has many more hospital beds and doctors per capita than the U.S. A more recent study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine measured “amenable mortality,” a measure of deaths that could have been prevented with good health care, in 19 industrialized nations. France again came in first. The U.S. was last. Not surprisingly, French citizens’ satisfaction with their system is 65%, the highest level among all European countries, compared to 40% in the U.S.
The French pay for their healthcare primarily by paying taxes that cover medical services. These taxes are high. Americans don’t pay as much in taxes, but pay much more when one counts insurance costs and their expenses for medicines, doctors, and hospitals.
The French system offers universal coverage and everyone is required to participate. In the U.S, 15.4% (46.3 million people) have no coverage at all and about twice that many are underinsured. Hence, there are roughly twice as many Americans with inadequate coverage as there are people in France.
The French system doesn’t cover everything. Co-payments in France range from 10 to 40% for most medical services. Hence, 92% of the French have complementary private insurance. This private health insurance makes up 12.7% of French health care expenditures. All private health insurance in France is required to offer guaranteed renewability, so you cannot be dropped if you get sick.
Most private health insurance is provided by non-profit organizations and their “modest” premiums are usually paid by employers. Furthermore, the more sick one is, the higher percentage is paid by the insurance system, 100% for 30 serious and chronic illnesses such as cancer and diabetes.
The French healthcare system
is the best in the world
By David P. Hamilton / The Rag Blog / June 1, 2011
“There are no uninsured in France. That’s completely unheard of. There is no case of anybody going broke over their health costs.” -- Victor Rodwin, New York University[This is the third in a series of dispatches from France by The Rag Blog's David P. Hamilton.]
PARIS -- President Obama dropped the healthcare “public option” like a hot potato at the very onset of last year’s debate in the U.S. over reforming healthcare. Despite polls of average citizens to the contrary, Obama asserted there wasn’t enough support for it, meaning that there wasn’t enough support among the economic elite, health insurance corporations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, and other medical capitalists, and hence, not enough support among members of Congress beholden to those interests. Let’s take a look at what they’re so afraid of.
The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the French health care system as the best in the world. The U.S. system ranks 37th. The complex details of the procedures used to determine these rankings are available on the WHO website. The WHO has hundreds of rankings on health related topics as specific as beer consumption by country. The U.S. fails to distinguish itself favorably in any of them.
Of particular note is the ranking by total health care expenditures as a percentage of the GNP where the U.S. at 15.4% leads the world, only exceeded by the Marshall Islands and far ahead of any other major industrialized nation.
Hence, while the U.S. health care system produces mediocre results, it is the most expensive. For France, with a system rightists consider far too expensive to maintain, the corresponding figure is 11.4%. Different studies show this disparity even greater, at 16% and 10.7%. In the U.S., $6,400 is spent annually per capita on health care costs while the average French person spends barely over half that amount, $3,300.
Other health care assessments tell much the same story. Infant mortality is a principal indicator of the quality of health care. In France, it is 3.9 per 1,000 live births. In the U.S., the rate is nearly 80% higher at 7.0. Life expectancy is 79.4 years in France, two years more than in the U.S. Death from respiratory disease, often preventable, is 31.2 per 100,000 in France while in the US it is 61.5, despite the fact that nearly twice the percentage of French adults smoke tobacco compared to the U.S.
France also has many more hospital beds and doctors per capita than the U.S. A more recent study by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine measured “amenable mortality,” a measure of deaths that could have been prevented with good health care, in 19 industrialized nations. France again came in first. The U.S. was last. Not surprisingly, French citizens’ satisfaction with their system is 65%, the highest level among all European countries, compared to 40% in the U.S.
The French pay for their healthcare primarily by paying taxes that cover medical services. These taxes are high. Americans don’t pay as much in taxes, but pay much more when one counts insurance costs and their expenses for medicines, doctors, and hospitals.
The French system offers universal coverage and everyone is required to participate. In the U.S, 15.4% (46.3 million people) have no coverage at all and about twice that many are underinsured. Hence, there are roughly twice as many Americans with inadequate coverage as there are people in France.
The French system doesn’t cover everything. Co-payments in France range from 10 to 40% for most medical services. Hence, 92% of the French have complementary private insurance. This private health insurance makes up 12.7% of French health care expenditures. All private health insurance in France is required to offer guaranteed renewability, so you cannot be dropped if you get sick.
Most private health insurance is provided by non-profit organizations and their “modest” premiums are usually paid by employers. Furthermore, the more sick one is, the higher percentage is paid by the insurance system, 100% for 30 serious and chronic illnesses such as cancer and diabetes.
1 comment:
vary Informative article. But there may be alternatives to a state monopoly over the citizenry in health care. Finding ways to improve health care choice or to expand that choice across national boundaries (for example, Americans opting to be covered by French health care--whether public or private programs, French opting to be covered by Japanese health care, etc.) seems not to be part of the agenda.
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