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I had a health crisis in France

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Re: I had a health crisis in France

#51

Post by markharris99 »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23

I was hospitalised in France last year - and coming from the UK, which has a social healthcare system too, I was likewise blown away by the quality of care. I was staying in a remote house, miles from the nearest village, an hour from the nearest hospital. After about four days of continuous vomiting in 40 degree heat I caved and called a doctor, in the hope of getting a prescription for antiemetics over the phone. I…

> I had a similar experience earlier this year in the U.K., and the contrast was significant - in the U.K. one feels like an irritation and an inconvenience. "Bloody hell, what's a patient doing here? This is a hospital!".

I'm 50. I remember what London was like way before Labour first got into power.

Lets look at today. Immigration is way out of control. London has probably 10 million people? It's busting at the seams.

I even travel to the south near the beach. Waiting for a doctor there? Sometimes up to a month.

I can remember when I would call a doctor and be seen the next day. Not any more.

The reason for the attitude is that doctors and nurses are at breaking point. I'm sorry if the down voters don't like hearing this but it's true.

Incidentally I voted to leave. But I think it's too late. We should have left before Labour got into power with Tony Blair. Like the Democrats in the US, they wanted immigrants from all over to change the political landscape and keep them in power. Regardless of native population.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#52

Post by [deleted] »

thro32 wrote: post #42
lumberjack wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think "the cost skyrocketed out of control". The cost is simply reflective of the leverage the health care provider and all the middle men in between hold against the patient. It's just that in other countries you have the government setting up a monopsony and dictating costs and salaries. I don't see how charging $30k for a heart bypass is unreasonable for somebody making $50k/year.

Reducing cost is always good. Is not that mantra of free market and capitalism?

[deleted]

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#53

Post by lumberjack »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23

I was hospitalised in France last year - and coming from the UK, which has a social healthcare system too, I was likewise blown away by the quality of care. I was staying in a remote house, miles from the nearest village, an hour from the nearest hospital. After about four days of continuous vomiting in 40 degree heat I caved and called a doctor, in the hope of getting a prescription for antiemetics over the phone. I…

France was ranked 1st in the world by WHO. The UK was ranked 18th. But France was also fourth in the world in per capita expenditures.

So they have socialised health care and they also fund it very generously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_rank...

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#54

Post by oblio »

ekianjo wrote: post #31
antirez wrote: post #21

This is normal on all western Europe states. However France has very high standards in general about health care and is regarded as one of the best systems. I think it's time for US citizens to accept that most of Europe has better life expectancy, lower infant mortality than US, and to be ill is not a financial tragedy. Moreover the treatment that a low-income and high-income citizen receives is very similar, so the…

> Europe has better life expectancy, Diet has a lot more to to about that than medical care.

That's actually also a health issue. In most EU countries you couldn't even stuff yourself with the crap that's allowed to be sold in the US.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#55

Post by digi_owl »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23

I was hospitalised in France last year - and coming from the UK, which has a social healthcare system too, I was likewise blown away by the quality of care. I was staying in a remote house, miles from the nearest village, an hour from the nearest hospital. After about four days of continuous vomiting in 40 degree heat I caved and called a doctor, in the hope of getting a prescription for antiemetics over the phone. I…

Well ever since Thatcher i get the impression that the UK has been trying to dismantle the NHS. Supposedly one of the first things done in Scotland after getting more internal autonomy was to reverse the changes from back then.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#56

Post by simias »

cm2187 wrote: post #28

The French health system has its own problems. There is little evaluation of physicians so picking a hospital is very much a lottery, unless you know insiders who will tell you where to go and not to go. The system runs a massive financial deficit. It is run in an administrative way which creates odds behaviors. For instance department allowances based on % of occupation of hospital beds, which lead them to keep peop…

>There is little evaluation of physician so picking a hospital is very much a lottery, unless you know insiders who will tell you where to go and not to go.

There are always variations, obviously but in general we have pretty good doctors AFAIK. If anything we don't have enough of them. I'm not sure how it relates to the article though, would a more liberal system improve the average quality of hospitals? Are US hospitals and doctors offer better service that the french ones? I'm really asking, I honestly don't know about that.

>The system runs a massive financial deficit.

It's still pretty massive but it's steadily shrinking these past few years, although parts of it might be caused by degrading the service slightly.

The government plans for a balanced budget in 2017, although the opposition says it's not completely true: http://www.publicsenat.fr/lcp/politique/budget-securite-soci...

This article gives a good overview of the situation as far as I can tell: http://www.lemonde.fr/financement-de-la-sante/article/2016/0...

>Like many centralised etatic system (and particularly in France), friends in the right places, political affiliation and freemasonry are more important drivers for a career than medecine.

What does that even mean? You went full tinfoil here. Whose career are you talking about anyway? Do you have any source?

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#57

Post by rubberstamp »

madaxe_again wrote: post #23

I was hospitalised in France last year - and coming from the UK, which has a social healthcare system too, I was likewise blown away by the quality of care. I was staying in a remote house, miles from the nearest village, an hour from the nearest hospital. After about four days of continuous vomiting in 40 degree heat I caved and called a doctor, in the hope of getting a prescription for antiemetics over the phone. I…

I guess it can be attributed to work conditions of health care professionals in both systems. May be they are better paid and not overworked and hence have a better attitude towards patients under their care as a result.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#58

Post by oblio »

ekianjo wrote: post #45
clouddrover wrote: post #8

The US spends more per capita on health care than other OECD countries, even ones with universal public health care: http://kff.org/health-costs/issue-brief/snapshots-health-car... And yet the US has lower life expectancy than those countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expe...

> The US spends more per capita on health care than other OECD countries, even ones with universal public health care: Sure, but the French social security system (la secu) is completely bankrupt and survives only because France continues growing its national debt. NO matter how you look at it, all these health systems are not sustainable anywhere on Earth.

Ok then, what about countries such as Canada or Germany? Universal healthcare, stable debt levels.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#59

Post by marknutter »

ekianjo wrote: post #31
antirez wrote: post #21

This is normal on all western Europe states. However France has very high standards in general about health care and is regarded as one of the best systems. I think it's time for US citizens to accept that most of Europe has better life expectancy, lower infant mortality than US, and to be ill is not a financial tragedy. Moreover the treatment that a low-income and high-income citizen receives is very similar, so the…

> Europe has better life expectancy, Diet has a lot more to to about that than medical care.

Diet and demographics. If you compare European countries to individual states you'll find we have comparable rates for many if not most of our states.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#60

Post by grecy »

Of course, this is perfectly normal in the developed world.

My brother broke his leg horribly a few years ago. Ambulance, helicopter, plane, 3 surgeries, a month in hospital, steel plates, etc. etc.

In Australia, you don't pay a cent out of pocket for that, it's all covered with taxes.

Similar story in Canada too. Even little stuff like I broke my nose - into hospital, xrays, time with dr to straighten, appointment a few days later to check, etc. All free.

The difference is simply that Health Care is run for profit in the USA. Someone wants to profit off your health (or lack thereof) so you must pay a lot of money to line their pockets. Some story for Higher education, incarceration, etc.

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