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I had a health crisis in France

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Re: I had a health crisis in France

#231

Post by KaiserPro »

gkya wrote: post #68
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…

In the UK (Wales) I got to see a hospital, a relative-in-law was terminally ill. The hospital was like a knock off slaughterhouse with thick dust everywhere and blood stains on the walls that stayed for weeks. After that I decided to get a check up every time before I go to the UK to not need the hospital there. I hope not all hospitals are like that there.

Yes, Wales has been underfunding the NHS.

Infact most of the NHS is being deliberately underfunded. Its partly what the junior doctor strikes about.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#232

Post by omginternets »

binarycoffee wrote: post #115
bosie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

fac = faculté, basically a French university. I guess what the parents refer to is that Universities in France are not as elitist as in other countries; the most prestigious higher education public schools are often considered to be the so-called "grandes ecoles" (engineering schools) or some specific administration/economics schools.

Grandes écoles are not just engineering, administration and economics schools.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#233

Post by omginternets »

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…

Yep, this happened to me last year as well.

- Severe diarrhea accompanied with excruciating abdominal cramps (hot knife w/ twisting, etc)

- Call ambulance. Taken to Saint-Anne within 15 minutes.

- Given IV fluids, pain-killers and anti-spasmatics

- Released one hour later; was able to walk home (I live near Denfert-Rochereau)

- Total time in care: 2 hours. Total bill: 0 (after reimbursements).

Say what you will about France, but they care for their own.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#234

Post by DanBC »

cel1ne wrote: post #145
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…

It's not just that the costs of getting healthy are taken care of. Here in austria free, yearly "health checkups" are offered to you by every doctor. Meaning, when you go there because of a cold, he will tell you that you ought to do a checkup every year, which include blood tests, psychological screening for alcoholism and other individualized tests like prostate cancer for men. It's just convenient to use the syste…

> and other individualized tests like prostate cancer for men.

Mass screening of healthy men for prostate cancer is probably more harmful than helpful.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#235

Post by brianwawok »

jdietrich wrote: post #204
brianwawok wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pointing out that you are comparing apples to oranges. France is closer in composition to New Hampshire than the US as a whole. So comparing health outcomes of the US as a whole to France is wrong. Compare health outcomes of say New Hampshire or Vermont to France.... This is the same mistake the news and popular politicians use to exploit the groupthink. "Look how bad the US is at X compared to this homogenous Eu…

>France is closer in composition to New Hampshire than the US as a whole. Does New Hampshire have any cities where 30-40% of the population are Muslim? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/resentment-growing-christians... To describe France as homogeneous is utterly, profoundly ignorant.

Compared to the United States, it is.

If you want actual numbers, you can start here:

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

It is not a huge difference, but it's there. I wouldn't consider religion the top factor to pivot on, I would consider things like native language a better model.

Here is data that suggests infant mortality ranges from 9.6 in Mississippi to 4.2 in MA. So by this metric, infant mortality is in fact LOWER for many people than in France (or many parts of Europe).

http://kff.org/other/state-indicator/infant-death-rate/?curr...

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#236

Post by omginternets »

ekianjo wrote: post #47
ThePhysicist wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France you pay 0 % taxes for the first 9.700 € of income, then 14 % for everything up to 26.791 €, then 30 % for everything up to 71.826 €, then 41 % for everything up to 152.108 € and 45 % for everything beyond that [1]. Hence 23 % effective tax rate sounds reasonable for an average income of around 50.000 €. The tax system in many European countries is similar btw, as is the health system. [1] https://fr.wikiped…

You don't live in urban centers like Paris with 50k revenue.

I make 1,300 euros a month (net) and live comfortably in the 14th arrondissement.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#237

Post by KaiserPro »

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…

Family of a medic here.

There are a number of problems with this statement.

First, immigrants are overwhelmingly young and healthy. They are overwhelmingly in work (and therefore paying National insurance....)

So, to answer your questions directly:

1) you can't get an appointment because GPs are either going bankrupt, or retiring faster than they can be replaced.

2) Baby boomers are all starting to succumb to chronic problems like diabetes, cancer, dementia etc. This costs a very large amount.

3) Diabetes costs 20% of the total NHS budget[1].

3) Social care budgets have been slashed, which means that old people come in to hospital for X, go home too early and with no support and come back with either a compound fracture or pneumonia.

4) The increase in NHS demand is 4% annually.

5) the "funding increase" comes from the cut in community & social care.

6) the degradation is entirely down to the lack of funding since 2010

[1]http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/04april/Pages/nhs-diabetes-costs...

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#238

Post by ward »

peteretep wrote: post #206
Majestic121 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at the Shanghai Ranking, some facs seems to be doing pretty good : http://www.shanghairanking.com/World-University-Rankings-201... While it is true that there are some very bad Facs and cursuses, dissing 'La fac' altogether seems a bit harsh

> some facs seems to be > doing pretty good 3 in the top hundred for a country with France's intellectual and cultural pedigree is a disgrace.

30% of the ranking's rating is based on nobel laureate/fields medal in alumni or staff. 20% based just on amount of publications in Nature and Science.

I never know why people rate these rankings so highly when there are such unimpressive metrics like these.

Not to mention that this particular ranking does not seem to consider education at all anyway, which is what the GP was talking about.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#239

Post by omginternets »

ekianjo wrote: post #40
angry-hacker wrote: post #13

Does France really have that low tax rate? Usually it's not only income tax people are paying over here and once Americans laern the total % of your money regular Joe pays for the government they are in shock, since they are not used to having so little money being left on the table.

> Does France really have that low tax rate No, its much higher than 23% as claimed by the author. At least in the 30 or 40% depends on your level of income. Its also fair to say that there is a large amount of households in France that pay no taxes at all.

>Its also fair to say that there is a large amount of households in France that pay no taxes at all.

It should be specified that this is because the French tax code provides exemptions to people making less than I-forget-how-much per year.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#240

Post by KaiserPro »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #136
markharris99 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>> 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. You're being downvoted to unreadability anyway, but I feel I should clarify this just for the sake of people who are unaware of it: immigrants to the UK don't get a vote in parliamentary elections and therefore Blair's Labour could bring in the entire populat…

Just to make even clearer, residents cannot vote in general elections, unless they are from the commonwealth.
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