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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 t

• ekianjo 10y ago
  > Europe has better life expectancy, Diet has a lot more to to about that than medical care.
  • collyw 10y ago
    Thats an interesting point, but it would be interesting to see it compared by regions. Southern Europe generally eats a lot healthier than Northern Europe.
    • erl 10y ago
      I am not sure that this is true. Many countries in northern Europe such as Iceland, Sweden, and Norway eat quite healthy. Using body mass index as a (arguably quite bad) proxy for a healthy diet we find [0] that many of the southern countries such as Spain, Greece and Portugal are more overweight than many countries farther north. [0] http://apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp http://apps.who.int/bmi/index.jsp
      • collyw 10y ago
        Sure, thats why I said generally. The UK and Germany don't have especially healthy diets in my opinion and have a lot more people than the Scandanavian countries that you mentioned.
        • erl 10y ago
          Agreed. However, Germany is typically not regarded as a part of Northern Europe. Although that can be argued since there is no formal definition if Northern Europe.
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  • oblio 10y ago
    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.
    • Broken_Hippo 10y ago
      Both of these! With the healthcare being paid for by taxes, there is a lot more incentive for governments to push healthy eating. It also means that policies for bike/walking routes pay off more.
      • vollmond 10y ago
        Which to some of us is another reason to resist taxpayer-funded healthcare. Government really doesn't need more incentive to overstep its bounds and interfere in our personal lives.
    • Veratyr 10y ago
      In most EU countries the alternatives are so much better that you wouldn't want to.
  • marknutter 10y ago
    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.
  • Retric 10y ago
    US has 75% higher infant mortality than France which has a real impact on life expectancy.
    • brianwawok 10y ago
      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.
      • alkonaut 10y ago
        Healthcare alone is just one piece of the puzzle. Having a french style healthcare system without corresponding safety nets in other areas to fight poverty/addiction/inequality etc would be better than the status quo, but not very effective.
        • kweinber 10y ago
          Important to note that the opioid addiction epidemic is actually exacerbated by flaws in the US healthcare system, so adoption of standards from France or elsewhere could help with that too.
          • alkonaut 10y ago
            Not to mention how many people need addiction treatment and/or psychiatric care who are instead incarcerated.
      • jdietrich 10y ago
        The drug problem is intimately related to the healthcare problem. America's private system is absolutely lousy at preventative medicine and public health. In most of Europe, it's easy to get into rehab even if you're destitute. We have drug workers out on the streets providing advice, clean needles and referrals to other healthcare services. Homeless addicts still have access to exactly the same services as anyone else. The death toll from addiction falls remarkably quickly if there's a concerted effort to abate it. We also avoided the opiate epidemic that is currently blighting the US - pill mills simply don't exist when there's no profit motive to dole out opiates like tic-tacs. Setting aside the obvious humanitarian issues, failing to address the healthcare needs of the very poorest is costing the American taxpayer dearly. The economic benefits of preventative medicine and social care were described better than I could in Gladwell's essay "Million Dollar Murray". http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-murray http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/02/13/million-dollar-...
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• tomp 10y ago
  > 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 than in the US).
  • alkonaut 10y ago
    ACA is a step in the right direction. Before US healthcare actually improves for a majority (and not just the uninsured - which isn't a small thing in itself) many more steps is needed. The best way to move ACA in a progressive direction would be to have a large public player in both insurance and as a provider.
    • ZenoArrow 10y ago
      > "The best way to move ACA in a progressive direction would be to have a large public player in both insurance and as a provider." One of the main reasons ACA is more expensive than it should be is because health insurance companies are jacking up the price. The insurance companies are surplus to requirements, once the US gets rid of them (and cuts down on price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry) the overall healthcare costs should drop dramatically.
      • knz 10y ago
        To give some context to the cost - between my employer and I, a family plan (the options are single or family) was $14,400 for 2017. That's a high deductible plan that requires us to pay the first $6,000 before insurance pays anything. Back in my native New Zealand, the total income tax for an average household is about $6,000 USD. $14,000 just for insurance vs $6,000 for "free" healthcare and all of the other infrastructure a country needs. The US healthcare system is a joke. A joke that wastes money and costs lives. I took my kid to the doctor recently and a 15 minute appointment was $250. It doesn't cost $1,000/hour for a doctor to do a routine exam. Part of the problem is the US is that the actual cost of insurance is buried in your benefits so people think that the $200/month they pay is the cost of insurance.
• Amezarak 10y ago
  > Moreover the treatment that a low-income and high-income citizen receives is very similar, so there is a lot less social discrimination. Can you expand on this? I don't know where I could take my money and receive better medical care than someone totally indigent. If anything, the experience as a poor person is better: my friend has had a kid and two major surgeries in the past year, plus regular checkups, and has paid nothing as she is on Medicaid. I see the exact same doctors, but I get a flurry of bills that come months after my visit, multiple bills for the same thing, and have to evaluate what's legitimate or if I need to argue and I end up spending a lot of money out of pocket due to the craze for high-deductible health plans - even though my premium is over 20k/year and I am still paying taxes to support Medicaid and Medicare! I mean, I guess the ultra-rich can buy their own doctors, or visit special superstar doctors, but I feel like that's probably universally true. But my feeling in the US if that if you qualify for Medicaid, you are actually better off than someone in the middle class - for example, I broke a bone early this year and I didn't bother going to the doctor because I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars for something medical care couldn't do much about anyway - but if I had Medicaid, I could just go and not worry. On the subject of the ACA, the best thing it did was expand Medicaid eligibility, though unfortunately due to the Supreme Court decision some states were able to refuse the expansion. I'm not really convinced the rest of the bill really advanced us much in the right direction. If only one of the carriers on the exchange was a public option...
• cel1ne 10y ago
  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 system. I even had multiple MRIs and dozens of XRays after minor sport injuries just to be sure.
  • nothrabannosir 10y ago
    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?
    • gotchange 10y ago
      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.
      • tmptmp 10y ago
        >>Systems like these can be susceptible to abuse and this should be researched and prevented as much as possible This is good in theory but very difficult to implement effectively. The conservatives take an extreme condescending view of social welfare and demand extreme checks on it whereas any checks and balances for abuse is what is attacked by many liberals/leftists. That's where immigration is playing a destructive force. A lot of immigrants (if not all/most) can be seen abusing social welfare. Also slightly related is what is happening in Briton w.r.t brexit. Brexit was welcome by many Britons also for this reason.
• switch007 10y ago
  Regarded by who as one of the best? I'd like to see how far down that ranking the NHS is now.
• agumonkey 10y ago
  Let me add a tiny bit of gloom. The healthcare situation is degrading. International context and other factors (big hospitals getting old, trying to reallocate geographical duties, merge/rebalance with other hospitals) are at play. The Healthcare employees are starting to complain a bit too often for it not to be worrying. About U.S. what saddens me is the natural reflex toward individualism and self responsibility being a better moral value than mutualized health as in France. I wish they could have a more balanced POV on things.
• pasbesoin 10y ago
  Remember when Obama was elected? Businesses were complaining ever more strongly about double digit percentage increases in health care insurance costs for their employees. Saying, 'we can't stay in business, compete, if this keeps up.' The Affordable Care Act was not proposed as some "left", "socialist" initiative. Mainstream America as a whole -- including the "conservative" side, business, etc. -- was clamoring for some sort of effective control on health care costs. Then, the Republicans made it a political issues. They "lost", and they weren't having any. All their rhetoric and obstruction, not of a "liberal", spendthrift proposal, but of a middle of the road plan that would provide, per their worry, a perceived "win" to the "other side." Once the ACA was passed -- in its further compromised form -- they did their best to kill it via the budget process / spending, which is a separate activity under control of the legislature (House and Senate). Facets written into the law, such as adjustments to control insurance losses during an initial, transitory period (the demographics and so costs of the newly enrolled not being known in advance), simply were not funded. That America doesn't have fair, cost-effective, productivity enhancing health care, is a function of political self-interest. And, in a Democracy, said politics are tied back to the electorate, however imperfectly. Republicans lied about health insurance. People bought the lie. Now we are living it -- ever more. P.S. Not to mention, blocking actual cost-controlling measures at every chance. By the way, for all the complaint by insurers about their "losing money" on the ACA, as I understand it, they've seen significant savings due to the ACA in their traditional, employer group plans. Are those mentioned and factored into the rhetoric about the ACA? Health care in the U.S. is indeed in crisis. At this point, it comes down to a simple trope: If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. The ACA bashing pols are simply part of the problem. Witness their inability to offer up an alternative of any substance. P.P.S. In other words, I don't give a flying f-ck whether you are "left" or "right". You make progress towards solving the problem, or you don't. And, I see it both as a economic and structural problem, and as a moral problem. A "moral" Right that is content to leave its fellow citizens suffering when resources and remedy are at hand (and this country can certainly afford them, in the dollar amounts estimated, if it makes the decision to), is not moral. It is merely hypocritical -- at best. I might contemplate using the word "evil".
• deleted 10y ago
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