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I had a health crisis in France

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Re: I had a health crisis in France

#191

Post by rtpg »

yodsanklai wrote: post #70

Just to give a different perspective, I think it's fair to say French people are very worried that healthcare quality is decreasing. I don't know if it's really the case but in any case, the system is far from being perfect. For one thing, some care are very expensive, like dental crowns and implants. In the article, the author says he had to pay 1300 euros for 47 days in the hospital. You're likely to pay more for o…

The eye doctor thing always confused me. I would have to call 2 months in advance to get a routine eye check! What??

It feels like it's purely because of government limiting the number of optomitrists. It reeks of some doctor's association lobbying the education ministry to keep the incoming number low (there's a hard limit set by the gov't on the amount of people who can study medicine).

For comparison, in Tokyo I can walk into any optometrist office without an appointment and just wait 15 minutes or so

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#192

Post by rtpg »

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.

Except for the 20% VAT, which affects poorer people much more as percent of their income.

If you're living paycheck to paycheck, that's 20% tax on your income. If you're a multi-millionaire, I doubt you're spending too much on groceries for the VAT to matter.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#193

Post by marcus_holmes »

brianwawok wrote: post #89
Retric wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has 75% higher infant mortality than France which has a real impact on life expectancy.

Look at infant mortality for college educated people in the two countries. Much more interesting. The US has massive population segments on drugs and other segments here illegal that dont get medical care. Generally if you are well off, the US is a fine place to be. If you are addicted or poor, it's not so great.

having some kind of health problem is a great way to suddenly not be wealthy in the US, too.

I think this is the real benefit of socialised health care. Your wealth will survive a health problem. You will not lose your house because you got cancer.

Health insurance works when it works (I have some), but when they decide they're not going to pay your bills, for whatever reason, and you have to pay the bills to keep the doctors working until you can take the insurer to court, then it's a nightmare. Socialised health care avoids this.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#194

Post by ElKrist »

nraynaud wrote: post #165
ElKrist wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Yes. And in my quote it is mentioned "Social Security" not "Healthcare branch of the Social Security". I took the Social Security as a whole because it's the total deficit of the Social Security that is often pointed at by the media. The "Healthcare branch" is not the one performing the best but the order of magnitudes are the same

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#195

Post by douche »

jdietrich wrote: post #149
witty_username wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could downvoter(s) explain?

He's literally asking us to disregard the health outcomes for a particularly vulnerable section of society. That strongly implies that these people aren't worth factoring in to our evaluation of a healthcare system, that their health simply doesn't matter. On a purely statistical level, it makes very little sense. Does he believe that poverty and drug addiction are uniquely American phenomena? Does he believe that th…

On the other hand, if you want to compare the enormous, diverse US to tiny, homogeneous EU countries 1-1, that's somewhat disingenuous as well.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#196

Post by gotchange »

nothrabannosir wrote: post #187
cel1ne wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's just convenient to use the system. I even had multiple MRIs and dozens of XRays after minor sport injuries just to be sure. I'm not sure where to draw the line, though. How do you determine when "just in case" costs too much? Remember, all Austrians paid for your mris and X-rays. I don't doubt it was worth it this specific case, but aren't the incentives wrong?

What makes you think that he doesn't pay into the system already as part of all people who chipped in whether Austrians or not?

Systems like these can be susceptible to abuse and this should be researched and prevented as much as possible but this attitude that any free health care receiver is to be treated with suspicion and distrust till proven innocent is not healthy, sorry for the pun.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#197

Post by vbernat »

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.

40% is a marginal rate. For the lower part of the income, you'll have a lower marginal rate. The effective rate is lower than the marginal rate. 23% is the rate of someone single and declaring 75k€ of net income (the marginal rate in this case is 41%). It seems that with such an income, you are part of the 3% wealthiers.

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#198

Post by tomp »

jules wrote: post #124
tomp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The important questions is, however, who's setting the prices for the drugs & procedures. I imagine it's the same in NL as in most Europe - the procedures covered by (obligatory) insurance is set by a centralized agency (probably government), along with the costs of said procedures and the drugs that can be prescribed as part of the insured procedures.

IIRC in the US, the main problem is that those setting the prices have much more bargaining power than the insurers (especially the smaller ones), so they're pretty much free to raise prices...

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#199

Post by galacticpony »

m_mueller wrote: post #172
galacticpony wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever been to Switzerland? I have and I find this comparison absurd. It is a very small, very wealthy country with almost none of the structural problems faced in the US. The nominal GDP in Switzerland is actually much higher than in the US, it's just that the country is way more expensive to live in. Therefore, when adjusted for cost-of-living (PPP), the GDP are about equal. Of course, the absolute amount of…

Hmm. First you call my post absurd, then you basically repeat everything I've written. The only point really left is that medical equipment is cheaper for Swiss. I really don't think this makes much of a difference - the main difference cost wise is what we both wrote: Regulations such that health providers and insurers have strict boundaries. Btw. I'm Swiss, if it hasn't been obvious already.

I called your comparison of the two countries absurd. It's not obvious that you're Swiss, it's obvious that you're out of touch and it's common for Americans to make some simplistic argument, pointing at fringe countries like Norway or Switzerland as an example.

You point at some facts that happen to be similar (when adjusted) for the US and Switzerland, but it's rather arbitrary. What the hell does gun ownership have to do with healthcare? And of course, like most industrialized countries, there are "lots of cars"...

The absolute difference in wealth doesn't affect just medical equipment, it affects practically everything besides labor. One of the reasons why labor is so expensive is the high taxes (VAT etc). When the government subsidizes that expensive labor, it'll get a big part right back.

You also edited your post to agree more with mine (i.e. Obamacare), when the original point was more like "private insurance can work look at Switzerland!".

Yes, it can work, if you're wealthy Switzerland and you regulate the fuck out of everything. Touche...

Re: I had a health crisis in France

#200

Post by douche »

badminton1 wrote: post #44

Healthcare professionals are expensive since they require significant preparation. But there is fishy stuff going on too... 1 liter sterile bag of saltwater for intervenous use in American hospitals is charged at over $300, not considering the cost of the procedure, which can total $500. The pharmaceutical industry also does some sort of disservice to society by inflating prices so much. Then, some money stays at the…

For one operation I had, I was given a turkey sandwich to eat in the recovery room before they would let me leave. Two slices of wonder-bread, one slice of turkey. $36 on the itemized bill that was sent to my insurance.

It's nuts.

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