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I had a health crisis in France

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Re: I had a health crisis in France

#161

Post by jdub »

witty_username wrote: post #120
jdub wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another way to look at it that I don't think the USA will be ready to understand any time soon: Universal health and education are (key parts of) freedom. You can even put a market spin on it: None of the risks involved in starting a small business in Australia have to do with health care for myself, or for people who might consider joining my small business as employees. I've never felt as if I'm giving up a…

But someone has to pay for the health care, so they're losing some freedom (money in this case). That person gives up freedom also on the pricing of your healthcare. Note: that person may be you, depending on taxation

The value of the better society I live in is greater than the value of what I pay in tax.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#162

Post by jdietrich »

markharris99 wrote: post #51
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 sea…

It's not a zero-sum game, there aren't a finite number of hospitals and doctors. 26% of our doctors are immigrants. Immigrants pay tax, which we can spend on more hospitals and doctors. They're disproportionately young, so they have a disproportionately low need for healthcare. Immigrants are part of the solution, not part of the problem.

We simply don't spend enough on healthcare. We have an ageing population with increasing medical needs, but our spending hasn't increased commensurately. As more people reach retirement age, the ratio of workers to pensioners falls. We don't want to pay more in tax, so inevitably we'll end up spreading our resources more thinly.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#163

Post by Broken_Hippo »

Marazan wrote: post #152
jdietrich wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British student loan system is essentially a graduate tax in disguise. You only repay 9% of your income over £21,000, deducted automatically from your wages in the same way as income tax. The loan is cancelled after 30 years, regardless of how much you have repaid. Young people understand that it's not a "debt" in the conventional sense of the word.

Except it counts against you for mortgage applications so in one very important way it is exactly like a debt.

But this is fairly practical and honest: I'd want to know if the person had student loans taken out of their paycheck before giving a mortgage. It might make a difference on how much I loan the person: They obviously don't have the disposable income as another person making the same wages yet not having a loan taken out.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#164

Post by sveiss »

Marazan wrote: post #152
jdietrich wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British student loan system is essentially a graduate tax in disguise. You only repay 9% of your income over £21,000, deducted automatically from your wages in the same way as income tax. The loan is cancelled after 30 years, regardless of how much you have repaid. Young people understand that it's not a "debt" in the conventional sense of the word.

Except it counts against you for mortgage applications so in one very important way it is exactly like a debt.

It only counts against you for mortgage applications because it reduces your net income, just like any tax does. A rise in general Income Tax rates would have a similar impact.

It doesn't show up on your credit report, you can't miss a payment and damage your future creditworthiness, and lenders don't include the value of the loan when calculating your total indebtedness.

It's much closer to a graduate tax than a personal loan for mortgage purposes.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#165

Post by nraynaud »

ElKrist wrote: post #139
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…

> The system runs a massive financial deficit. French person here. Although the deficit of the healthcare system is often pointed at by the media, it is far from "massive". From [1] translated in English: "This budget is in deficit, (...) but this deficit is far less than the budget of the State. In 2011, the deficit of the Social Security represented 2,66% of its total budget (11,7 / 440,8 billions €) compared to 45…

Careful, I think you lumped together the retirement and health branches, the health side has a lower deficit than the retirement side, that means that the health insurance has a lower deficit than what you stated.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#166

Post by Broken_Hippo »

kensai wrote: post #106
wav-part wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But it is. Insurance works by pooling money from a group of people where only few are going to use it. Except not everyone paying the same amount. Most pay nothing. That is, in socialist health care system. And I am not just refering to insurance but also investment toward better medical education. If there is medical advancement going on then we have to collectively make sure that we all get it at good price. I am…

> Except not everyone paying the same amount. Most pay nothing. That is, in socialist health care system. Ehm, the national health care systems in Europe are paid by our taxes. The only persons who do not pay to them are those that are entitled NOT to pay (below poverty level, children, etc).

Here even folks below the poverty level pay a little bit on the VAT taxes and so on, as do children. (Even if the money they are spending originated with the taxpayers)

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#168

Post by zdkl »

bosie wrote: post #107
zdkl wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not in the fac mindset, sure. But still, equal access and cheap education is not something to spit at!

> If you're not in the fac mindset what is a "fac mindset"?

The facs in France are well known for their laissez-faire attitude vis à vis students' personal work. The faculty personnel has a limited engagement with the integration of the students into the cursus. Combined with the moderate interest post-high school students show this leads to about 50% of the promotion not quite dropping out.(+)

And then there's the 'diplomas for all' aspect which incentivises the faculty to reach out and lower the barrier of passage into the next year, with obvious consequences....

(+) oh the humanities, mostly

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#169

Post by maxerickson »

makomk wrote: post #154
maxerickson wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. This shouldn't be a significant problem. In an actuarial sense, the burden of the cost should largely be born by the party with the risk. If you aren't doin…

Obamacare was designed to shift the cost of healthcare for the old onto the young, by capping the maximum difference between the premiums paid by the two groups. This had the predictable effect that young people didn't sign up for health insurance in the numbers predicted. So insurance companies lost money and left the market, and the remaining companies are hiking prices at an astronomical rate, far beyond what even…

Let's be a little more careful than that. Obamacare is more than just the exchanges, and the exchanges aren't failing in every state (premiums are even going down in a couple states). There was also a provision for federal funding of the unpredicted expense that was blocked by congress.

Anyway, my point in my other comment was that while Obamacare did try to shift costs to younger people, low participation wasn't a problem to be solved, it was seen as an opportunity to grow the pools and make it sort of work. The pools probably should have been grown by ending group policies.

Broadly speaking, I probably agree with you. Spending is unlikely to solve a pricing problem.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#170

Post by jdietrich »

Marazan wrote: post #152
jdietrich wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The British student loan system is essentially a graduate tax in disguise. You only repay 9% of your income over £21,000, deducted automatically from your wages in the same way as income tax. The loan is cancelled after 30 years, regardless of how much you have repaid. Young people understand that it's not a "debt" in the conventional sense of the word.

Except it counts against you for mortgage applications so in one very important way it is exactly like a debt.

That's not entirely true. Your student loan repayments are deducted from your net income when calculating affordability, for very obvious reasons. The amount of debt isn't a factor and student loans aren't recorded with credit reference agencies. Student loans don't significantly affect the affordability of housing. If you're on a salary of £30,000, your student loan repayments will reduce your net income by less than 4%.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuit...

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