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French healthcare system, etc
Aug. 29th, 2009 03:03 amFrench healthcare system, etc
From kateelliott's LJ:
Today on The Lehrer News Hour I watched an interview with T.R. Reid who has a new book out called The Healing of America. Last year Frontline produced a program, Sick Around the World, in which Reid investigated health care systems in 5 other industrialized countries, some single payer like Canada's (that would be Taiwan) and others completely private insurance based like our own (Switzerland, anyone?).
The French private insurance system covers all 61 million residents of France, with excellent health results. There's no "in-network" or "pre-authorization"; you can pick any doctor or hospital in France, and insurance has to pay the bill. Doctors are required to post their prices on the wall of the waiting room, so the mystery of American-style medical billing is removed.
Everyone in France has a green plastic card, the carte d'assurance maladie. That card has completely replaced paper billing and medical records. The result: administrative costs of 3 percent, compared to 25 percent in the U.S.
He then went on, for his book, to survey the health care systems of the 23 richest and most industrialized countries in the world (that includes the USA), the other 22 of which provide coverage to everyone, in one way or another, some public, some fully private, some a mix.
Here's a link to a very fine 9 minute interview with him that is enlightening and sobering.
Reid says: Nobody dies in those countries because they can't see a doctor.
From kateelliott's LJ:
Today on The Lehrer News Hour I watched an interview with T.R. Reid who has a new book out called The Healing of America. Last year Frontline produced a program, Sick Around the World, in which Reid investigated health care systems in 5 other industrialized countries, some single payer like Canada's (that would be Taiwan) and others completely private insurance based like our own (Switzerland, anyone?).
The French private insurance system covers all 61 million residents of France, with excellent health results. There's no "in-network" or "pre-authorization"; you can pick any doctor or hospital in France, and insurance has to pay the bill. Doctors are required to post their prices on the wall of the waiting room, so the mystery of American-style medical billing is removed.
Everyone in France has a green plastic card, the carte d'assurance maladie. That card has completely replaced paper billing and medical records. The result: administrative costs of 3 percent, compared to 25 percent in the U.S.
He then went on, for his book, to survey the health care systems of the 23 richest and most industrialized countries in the world (that includes the USA), the other 22 of which provide coverage to everyone, in one way or another, some public, some fully private, some a mix.
Here's a link to a very fine 9 minute interview with him that is enlightening and sobering.
Reid says: Nobody dies in those countries because they can't see a doctor.
