FW: The Economist capsule summary of French healthcare

Sat May 22 18:11:41 2004

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 Ghetts,
I got this from the mother (my age), of a young politically active woman who is actively striving to make the US a better place. I find this rare, indeed. I think our health care system, if it can be called that, is knotted up with an absurd worship of the free market while layered with HMO bureacuracy which drains a third of the available monies away from patient care in the interest of administration, whose mission is to keep people from getting the care they need. The new card system for drug purchases is laberyrinthine, probably on purpose, to frustrate the people needing the drugs from using it. It makes me sick.
Frances

. 

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From: "Sharon Majors" <sharonmajors@austin.rr.com>
To: "'Cynthia Majors Lyon'" <cmajors@capitalgmac.com>,
	"'Katherine Majors'" <kathemajors@yahoo.com>
Subject: FW: The Economist capsule summary of French healthcare
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 13:42:41 -0500
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Sharon S Majors
512-458-9067, 512-657-7137 =20

-----Original Message-----
From: PThainmarston@cs.com [mailto:PThainmarston@cs.com]=20
Sent: Saturday, May 22, 2004 12:32 AM
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Subject: The Economist capsule summary of French healthcare

from Political Animal May 21, 2004
    [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/]
   =20
FRENCH HEALTHCARE....The Economist provides a capsule summary of =
healthcare
in France: =
[http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=3D2670654]

    Its hospitals gleam. Waiting-lists are non-existent. Doctors still =
make
    home visits. Life expectancy is two years longer than average for =
the
    can consult another, a habit known as nomadisme m=E9dical. =
Individual
    hospital rooms are the norm. Specialists can be consulted without
    referral. And while the patient pays up front, almost all the money =
is
    reimbursed, either through the public insurance system or a top-up
    private policy.

    For family doctors too, liberty prevails. They are self-employed, =
can
    set up a practice where they like, prescribe what they like, and are
    paid per consultation. As the health ministry's own diagnosis put it
    recently: =93The French system offers more freedom than any other in =
the
    world.=94

And despite the Economist's scary headline, which proclaims that "crisis
looms," the French system provides this service to everyone in the =
country
and does it for less than half the cost per person of the U.S. Even if =
they
decide to raise taxes to cover a growing deficit in their healthcare =
fund
(the subject of the Economist's article) their costs will still be less =
than
half ours per person.

Now, there are undoubtedly drawbacks to the French system. They probably
have fewer high-tech machines than we do, and the comparative cost =
figures
may be skewed by the American love of elective procedures. Still, there
would have to be a lot of drawbacks to make their system less attractive
than ours.

So why not adopt it? Well, that would be socialized medicine. Can't have
that, can we? After all, everyone knows that when you socialize =
something it
automatically declines slowly into anarchy and uselessness. Right?
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
A falling body always rolls to the most inaccessible spot.
-- Bernstein's Law

Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.
http://ourworld.cs.com/pthainmarston/
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

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