The French healthcare system

[Contumacious]

The report says an ageing population and the high cost of advanced treatments will help push health spending past 9% of gross domestic product - one of the highest levels in the world.

Experts have already warned that a projected healthcare deficit of 10.9 billion euros this year could rise to 29 billion euros by 2010, unless action is taken.

Looking further ahead, the report says the deficit could rise to 66 billion euros by 2020.

Health Minister Jean-Francois Mattei has already put forward a plan known as "Hospital 2007" proposing management reforms and a new emphasis on cost assessment.

Problems in the French health system were exposed last year, when a heat wave killed around 15,000 mostly elderly people.

There was also a bed shortage in hospitals in December, when a nationwide flu and bronchitis epidemic broke out.

 

[Diuretic]

how are they with bullet wounds, kirky?

I remember reading, I think it was in Time, years ago that the US Army Medical Corps sent its surgeons to Cook County General for experience in dealing with bullet wounds (this was during the Vietnam War).

 

[Diuretic]

It's not merely a coincidence that the right has ignored the French model of universal healthcare.

What is no coincidence that the left is ignoring the problems of the French system. It is financially unsustainable and losing money by the millions.

Again Chris uses a rather stupid piece of evidence to support universal health care. He has tried, disingenuously and dishonestly to link a countries life expectancy with the quality of it's health care system. The fact is your life expectancy has more to do with genetics and the life style choices you make. Yet another attempt by the left to blame anyone and everyone but themselves for a problem.

Life expectancy is definitely composed of many factors. If you're arguing that health care isn't one of those factors then you're doing exactly what you accuse Chris of doing.

 

[indianaboy]

There's a very easy solution for everyone who prefers the French system to our own.

 

[Diuretic]

There's a very easy solution for everyone who prefers the French system to our own.

I think Dude has beaten you to that particular punch.

It's going to be the "then if you like it so much why don't you move there?" isn't it?

 

[Oddball]

France: Smaller than Texas, does NOT have 15 MM Illegal Aliens, and then there's this:

"In response to rising malpractice premiums, France has moved to a Scandinavian compensation system (I'll explain why it's called "Scandinavian" whenever Ezra covers the Swedish health care system).

Under the French implementation of the Scandinavian system, wronged patients bring claims before their regions' government-appointed review board which is responsible for determining if compensation is in order and, if so, how much. For a patient to get paid, the board does not have to find the doctor at fault, or that medical negligence caused whatever pain and suffering the patient is experiencing. Money for patient relief comes from a national compensation fund, which presumably gets its cash either from a dedicated tax insurance premium placed on doctors and hospitals, or from general fund revenues. The closest analogy to this sort of system in the United States would be workers' compensation funds that many states run. The goal of such systems is not to find fault or establish causation as much as it is to provide a bit of compensation to workers who are injured on the job."

Medical Malpractice Policy: France

Just wait 'til these yo-yos repost that list which includes postage stamp countries like Andorra as having better medical care than America.

Shootin' this crapola down is almost too easy anymore.

 

[Diuretic]

France: Smaller than Texas, does NOT have 15 MM Illegal Aliens, and then there's this:

"In response to rising malpractice premiums, France has moved to a Scandinavian compensation system (I'll explain why it's called "Scandinavian" whenever Ezra covers the Swedish health care system).

Under the French implementation of the Scandinavian system, wronged patients bring claims before their regions' government-appointed review board which is responsible for determining if compensation is in order and, if so, how much. For a patient to get paid, the board does not have to find the doctor at fault, or that medical negligence caused whatever pain and suffering the patient is experiencing. Money for patient relief comes from a national compensation fund, which presumably gets its cash either from a dedicated tax insurance premium placed on doctors and hospitals, or from general fund revenues. The closest analogy to this sort of system in the United States would be workers' compensation funds that many states run. The goal of such systems is not to find fault or establish causation as much as it is to provide a bit of compensation to workers who are injured on the job."

Medical Malpractice Policy: France

Just wait 'til these yo-yos repost that list which includes postage stamp countries like Andorra as having better medical care than America.

Shootin' this crapola down is almost too easy anymore.

So far no-one wants to contest my argument that health care shouldn't be treated as a consumer commodity. I would appreciate the chance to test the idea.

 

[Oddball]

So much for telling us what it shouldn't be treated like...Tell us what it should be treated like instead.

 

[Diuretic]

So much for telling us what it shouldn't be treated like...Tell us what it should be treated like instead.

Okay. It should be a form of single payer government agency. In the US that might be at state level, here because of our small population it's done at the federal level.

It should be funded from taxes. There may need to be a separate tax of a relatively small amount to fund it. There may be a co-payment required from those who are above a certain income threshold, that could be reduced or waived where people are earning below that income level or are on welfare or other public benefits scheme.

Private health insurance should be available to those who can afford to buy it. There should be two streams of health care - public and private.

Private health insurance could be offered by employers to employees as part of their conditions of employment. If people want to trade off part of their prospective earnings to buy private health insurance via the employer then they should be able to do so.

 

[Oddball]

And that's worked soooooo well for Medicare/Medicaid, which cost ten times what they were projected to when enacted.

But hey, that's a model of clear failure....Can you come up with another program from Big Daddy Big Gubmint, that can be pointed to as a success pattern to follow??

 

[elvis]

And that's worked soooooo well for Medicare/Medicaid, which cost ten times what they were projected to when enacted.

But hey, that's a model of clear failure....Can you come up with another program from Big Daddy Big Gubmint, that can be pointed to as a success pattern to follow??

Chris likes it cause it's called Big Daddy. Makes him think Roxy's behind him.

 

[Diuretic]

And that's worked soooooo well for Medicare/Medicaid, which cost ten times what they were projected to when enacted.

But hey, that's a model of clear failure....Can you come up with another program from Big Daddy Big Gubmint, that can be pointed to as a success pattern to follow??

Failure? It's working everywhere else. Maybe you have incompetents running your systems?

 

[Oddball]

"Everywhere else" isn't America.

How 'bout you tend to your country and we'll tend to ours??....Or do you often barge in on your neighbors' homes and tell them how to run their lives and raise their children??

 

[Diuretic]

"Everywhere else" isn't America.

How 'bout you tend to your country and we'll tend to ours??

Of course, but I hope I can suggest an idea now and again.

 

[Oddball]

How 'bout suggesting some decent dive sites that aren't along the Barrier Reef, or some great paraglider/hang gliding sites and leave us to our politics, eh what??

 

[Chris]

"Everywhere else" isn't America.

How 'bout you tend to your country and we'll tend to ours??

Of course, but I hope I can suggest an idea now and again.

Don't bother with Dude.

He is mildly retarded.

 

[elvis]

"Everywhere else" isn't America.

How 'bout you tend to your country and we'll tend to ours??

Of course, but I hope I can suggest an idea now and again.

Don't bother with Dude.

He is mildly retarded.

you are severely retarded.

 

[elvis]

I like Diuretic. Cool puddle there, Di.

 

[Diuretic]

Yep, nifty photo. I don't know if it was set up although it was apparently a random occurrence but it's a good pic - they even got Tasmania (but not Kangaroo Island)

 

[Diuretic]

How 'bout suggesting some decent dive sites that aren't along the Barrier Reef, or some great paraglider/hang gliding sites and leave us to our politics, eh what??

I used to post on an Australian politics board. A couple of Americans used to post there as well. The resident Australians time and time again told them to fuck off. I got sick and tired of the out and out rudeness all the time so I just bailed out. At least here the "fuck off out of our politics" isn't happening all the time. Folks here are very tolerant in fact so when I get the odd one I don't let it phase me.

But I can understand the annoyance factor. I try not to abuse my welcome by steering clear of a lot of domestic political issues but I admit I fall in the mudholes occasionally (sometimes I think I get a shove in the back though). On issue like health care I don't see it as some others do, as a political issue, more an issue of public policy and since that interests me I feel pretty free to comment on it as such an issue. That some have made it a politically-charged subject isn't my doing and I try to not come at it from that position.

Diving sites. The tropical areas in Australia are basically north of the Tropic of Capricorn (okay, that was a duh!). So far northern Queensland, Northern Territory and Western Australia (the northern parts anyway) are okay for diving but you need to be very careful of stingers, box jellyfish, saltwater crocs (aka estuarine crocodiles) and other sorts of tropical biters and stingers. In the temperate areas which are further south there are some very good sites. Near where I am there is a former RAN destroyer sunk which is a haven for divers. Also in my state's gulf waters you can dive in cages where White Pointers hang out near Port Lincoln and in the south-east of my state there are sink holes which you can dive but you have to be trained and licensed to do so because of the danger.

I don't know much about para/hang gliding, there are some sites in New South Wales and Victoria's higher areas I think.