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I had a health crisis in France

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Re: I had a health crisis in France

#121

Post by ThomPete »

tomp wrote: post #91
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…

> Obama was going in the right direction Can you expand on this? I've heard many critics of Obamacare (that say it doesn't actually work that well in reality), and in general, it seems that it was only tackling a part of the problem. In Europe, you usually have a single payer, single buyer and single executor (or at least each of those is very regulated, so there's less chance for exploitative monopolistic behaviour…

The primary issue with the system before Obama was two-fold.

1) Too many young people didn't insure themselves meaning that the relatively low cost of having them as insured couldn't be used to balance out the higher cost needed for later on in life. This was putting the primary burden of the cost on the older generations.

By forcing everyone to pay the idea was that you could even out the cost.

2) Pre-existing conditions. I.e. the insurance agencies wouldn't cover you if you came into their plan with an existing condition. To give you an example of that from real life.

I had a stage 1 melanoma. They tried to excise it but didn't get everything out and I had to get more complicated operation.

My insurance wouldn't cover it because they claimed I had that coming into the system. I later convinced them otherwise but until that happened the only thing my doctor could offer me was to monitor my melanoma for the year I had to wait until they would cover me again. Imagine that.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#122

Post by witty_username »

brianwawok wrote: post #93
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using: http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mo... births out of 1000 that are stillbirths: France 3.87 UK 3.50 USA 2.95 Germany 2.43 Infant Mortality (under 5) per 1000 live births USA 5.87 UK 4.38 France 4.30 Germany 3.70 Combining the two for a birthed (Still or not) and didn't make it to 5 rate: USA: 8.8 France: 8.2 UK: 7.9 Germany: 6.1 Obviously the studies…

Now refine that down to college educated nonndrug using people. I suspect it would be even more narrow.

Could downvoter(s) explain?

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#123

Post by on_and_off »

I am French and live in France right now. Recently I had to undergo a surgical procedure. Nothing as serious as heart surgery, but still one day at the hospital and general anesthesia.

This has not affected my personal finances and I only had to focus on getting better.

I would like to move to the USA but I have got to admit that it frightens me that this kind of issue would have costed me a lot and a serious health condition could bankrupt me.

This is not ok. It saddens me that USA have not been able to instore a sane health care system.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#124

Post by jules »

tomp wrote: post #91
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…

> Obama was going in the right direction Can you expand on this? I've heard many critics of Obamacare (that say it doesn't actually work that well in reality), and in general, it seems that it was only tackling a part of the problem. In Europe, you usually have a single payer, single buyer and single executor (or at least each of those is very regulated, so there's less chance for exploitative monopolistic behaviour…

It's different in different countries. The Netherlands has a system that is similar to Obamacare in that it is a system where everyone is required to have insurance and insurance companies cannot charge more to people with pre-existing conditions, but in the Netherlands there is a lot more competition between insurers. There are 30+ insurance companies and switching is easy. A standard insurance package is €100/month with a €400 deductible.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#125

Post by trprog »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #112

I think I (living in the UK, currently an EU country) understand the mentality behind the US healthcare system(s). I think it's along the lines of "Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare?". I've heard similar arguments from British people (I'm rather more socialist in my outlook than average, for a UK resident, I fear) and I don't really have an answer to that. Why indeed? I'm probably conditioned to answer t…

>"Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare?".

>and I don't really have an answer to that. Why indeed?

Because you don't know what is going to happen in the future. One day you may wind up broke and be diagnosed with a serious illness. And what about any children you may have. Wouldn't you like to know that they will receive care after you are dead no matter what is going on in their life?

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#126

Post by AsyncAwait »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #112

I think I (living in the UK, currently an EU country) understand the mentality behind the US healthcare system(s). I think it's along the lines of "Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare?". I've heard similar arguments from British people (I'm rather more socialist in my outlook than average, for a UK resident, I fear) and I don't really have an answer to that. Why indeed? I'm probably conditioned to answer t…

I supported Jeremy Corbyn, so I am also way more socialist than you average Brit, but the answer to "Why should I pay for someone else's healthcare?" is actually quite simple - human decency.

Do you really want people to actually DIE? I hope not and that you'll rather pay "for someone else's healthcare" than to see them suffer and if YOU are ever bad on your luck and need the help, I'll gladly pay for your healthcare if you need it, because I know that you paid into the system when you could and now we're just paying you back.

I am already paying taxes for a lot of things that I may not want to anyway, like overbudget defense spending, over the top salaries for MPs, failed research, government websites that cost way more than they should and other initiatives that nobody asked for, financial support for hugely profitable multinationals etc. etc. - if I am paying for that, OF COURSE I'll pay into a system that will help a human being when they need it and be confident that I or my family members can expect the same, should it ever come to it.

It always seemed to me that in the U.S. they're fed up with having to pay for an excessive budget, yet they always blame the wrong part of it for their high taxes - don't blame healthcare spending, blame the way it's implemented, blame the fact that over 50% of your tax dolars is spent on the military, blame the failed, overbudget F-35 project etc. etc. DON'T blame Flint residents who don't even have access to clean water - where's the logic in that?

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#127

Post by kgwgk »

rapala wrote: post #73
wav-part wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I-don't-want-to-pay-for-others != I will not insure my health. US health system needs competition more than socialism [1]. [1] https://mises.org/blog/lack-epipen-competitors-fdas-fault EDIT: A really good comment from link above. Mark S - https://mises.org/blog/lack-epipen-competitors-fdas-fault#co... The culprit in virtually all health care or drug price gouging outrages is insurance and "free" taxpayer money. Ameri…

>I-don't-want-to-pay-for-others != I will not insure my health. But it is. Insurance works by pooling money from a group of people where only few are going to use it. >People never ask "So, what does this drug/treatment cost?" but rather "Do you accept my insurance?" Which makes sense, as survival and physical and mental well-being are humans primary needs.

Health insurance is not really insurance, though. Not only "a few" are going to use it. If auto insurance worked in the same way people would expect it to pay for oil changes, new tires, and other car maintenance expenses.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#128

Post by alkonaut »

brianwawok wrote: post #93
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using: http://chartsbin.com/view/1445 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mo... births out of 1000 that are stillbirths: France 3.87 UK 3.50 USA 2.95 Germany 2.43 Infant Mortality (under 5) per 1000 live births USA 5.87 UK 4.38 France 4.30 Germany 3.70 Combining the two for a birthed (Still or not) and didn't make it to 5 rate: USA: 8.8 France: 8.2 UK: 7.9 Germany: 6.1 Obviously the studies…

Now refine that down to college educated nonndrug using people. I suspect it would be even more narrow.

Why would one take a subset of healthy people in a comparison?

If anything, healthcare systems ought to be ranked on the life expectancies of the bottom percentile. Making a great health care system for the not-poor, not-addicted and those without preexisting conditions isn't a hard problem.

Part of the difference in mindset might be that addiction or poverty is partly seen as self inflicted in the US whereas I would always classify both as being mostly beyond the control of the individual. Even with our socialized medicine rich people eat bettter, excercise more, stress less and thus live longer. I'm glad our healthcare system offsets the life expectancy difference down to 5-10 years between me and a poor person, and I'm happy to pay for it.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#129

Post by xorcist »

wav-part wrote: post #24
kensai wrote: post #9

Medicine is one of those few fields the "socialized" approach is actually the better one. Of course you would prefer a I-don't-want-to-pay-for-others* stance when you are young and healthy (ie provided you were not born with a genetic condition or something similar), but once you start aging and caring, you start appreciating why Medicine as practiced in Europe makes much more sense in the end. *even Ayn Rand alleged…

I-don't-want-to-pay-for-others != I will not insure my health. US health system needs competition more than socialism [1]. [1] https://mises.org/blog/lack-epipen-competitors-fdas-fault EDIT: A really good comment from link above. Mark S - https://mises.org/blog/lack-epipen-competitors-fdas-fault#co... The culprit in virtually all health care or drug price gouging outrages is insurance and "free" taxpayer money. Ameri…

I love how nobody calls military spending "socialized". Only health care and education, for some reason.

The US has a gigantic "socialized" spending on that compared to everyone else. It's just that it's rather focused on one single thing. You can even hear politicians promise to spend even more taxpayer money on it.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#130

Post by maelito »

glandium wrote: post #39
raphaelj wrote: post #6

> My individual burden, however, is far more reasonable than > an American might assume. I pay an annual income tax of > about 23%. How comes this number is that low? Tax revenue in France account for about 48% of the country's GDP[1]. I'm living in Belgium, and my payroll tax is already higher than these 23%. -- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_reven...

Income tax, however, doesn't cover social security. That's covered by the taxes an employer pays, and those are larger than 23% (but also contain other taxes). It's all detailed on pay slips. https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulletin_de_salaire

It's covered by some of the taxes you and your employer pay (though it's transparent for you) that are roughly proportional to your salary. For most people : Health cotisation : ~14% CSG (on all types of revenue, not only salaries) : ~8%

Some other taxes go to fund the medical system (e.g. Forfait social, Taxe sur les salaires, TVA on drugs), but as far as I know those two are the main ones.

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