The Best Health Care System In the World Began in a Similar Way that Ours is.

[berni_mccoy]

The French had a similar beginning to what we are seeing:

The founders of the French social security system were largely inspired by the Beveridge report in the United Kingdom, and aimed to create a single system guaranteeing uniform rights for all. However, there was much opposition from certain socio-professional groups who already benefited from the previous insurance coverage that had more favourable terms. These people were allowed to keep their own systems. Today, 95% of the population are covered by 3 main schemes. One for commerce and industry workers and their families, another for agricultural workers and lastly the national insurance fund for self-employed non-agricultural workers.

I find it funny that many of the attacks on the House bill could be applied to the French system:

- It has a mandate (how dare they)
- It doesn't cover 100% of the population (they only cover 95% while the House PO will cover 96%)
- The French still have for-profit insurance (those corporate whores)
- A forced premium is deducted from your pay
- People are allowed to keep their private insurance (yes, they do have private insurance, about 4% of the population chooses it for medical, and as high as 36% choose it for dental, vision and medical hardware).

Worse yet, the French system still applies cots sharing and they don't have preset rates for private providers.

And yet, they have the highest ranked system in the World. Could it be that the Public Option isn't going to be nearly as bad as some make it out to be?

For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_France#Health_insurance

[spanone]

1. this bill may not even get out of the house let alone be similar to any other system

[Warpy]

2. The public option is absolutely vital to reform

because the system will simply keep failing to work without it.

The French knew that, as do most of the other countries whose systems vary from a mixed system to single payer with private supplements.

If we don't get a public option, it's just not reform. It's only another fucking corporate giveaway.

Any congressman who is against the public option in either party needs to be thrown out on his selfish, corrupt ass.

[Cant trust em]

4. We're going to get a public option.

It won't be "robust", but we'll get it.

[Warpy]

5. I think once we get it

it will be made considerably more robust as time goes on, especially since corporations are going to start dumping employment based health insurance as soon as it's feasible.

The latter is inevitable. That's another reason we need a public plan in place.

[Cant trust em]

6. Things like this become easy to expand, but tough to contract.

That's part of why the republicans don't want it to see the light of day. They know that it will eventually become very popular and that the democrats will be able to own the best piece of social legislation since Medicare.

[HughMoran]

3. Excellent post and a hearty K&R

Those who would grit their teeth and angrily unrec this post are not in favor of reform - remember that.

[berni_mccoy]

9. I will. Thank you.

[bikingaz]

7. Agreed but rising costs in France are a major issue

the issue ultimately is who is covered, who pays how much and who is excluded

[berni_mccoy]

8. It's why the cost contaimnent portions of the House Bill are so important.

[truedelphi]

14. If any elected official was really truly concerned about Cost Containment, then we

Would have seen a six week or two month discussion about the costs. But this discussion never ocurred.

Why are costs so high? Most of us never even get to use insurance (Assuming that we are isnured,) because of recission and because of doctors working for HMO's are delaying the treatments. So the big expensive equipment is off limits to us. Or else the insurers are ruling the treatments are "experimental, and can't be covered." And in this HCR bill now under way, the out of pocket co-pays and other payments could be so high. If someone thinks they need a $ 8,000 procedure but they ahve to pay for the first 30% or more of that porocedure, in addition to the premiums, than this heath care rreform effort is merely pbringing me the same sort of dental insurance that I had all of 2006 - I could get any treatment I wanted, but since what I needed was out of my budget, all my insurance premiums were doing was offseting the cost of treatment for the rich.

Also ANOTHER IMPORTANT POINT - the Corporate-controlled FDA controls through patents the profit margin.

I was thinking about this quite a lot yesterday after an iodine dye was inserted into vein of my right arm. (For a simple test procedure.)

Some cancer researchers beleive that iodine might play a part in tumor reduction - but if so, chances of iodine becoming a cancer treatment are nil -since you cannot patent it.

If table salt mixed with strawberry jam were to be a fool proof way to beat cancer, the Big Insureres would buy up all the strrawberry jam. And they would see to it that the word never got out.

[Sebastian Doyle]

10. One crucial detail you left out about the private insurers in France

They are non-profit, by LAW. This is also true of the Swiss system. So even though there are private companies involved, they are not working for the purpose of shareholders, and paying 9 digit salaries to CEO's.

If that was the case in the US, a mixed public/private system would be acceptable. Instead, the current proposed plan forces millions of Americans to pay a criminal, for profit system. And that is just fucking WRONG.

[berni_mccoy]

11. *most* are non-profit. Not all.

From the link: "Supplemental coverage may be bought from private insurers, most of them nonprofit, mutual insurers. "

[ooglymoogly]

15. Well duh....the for profit must still work within the limits set by

the "non profits" and provide at least the same services or they will get only relatively few customers. If the "for profits" are competing, then there is no problem with the "for profits'. If they provide, for instance, a Rolls Royce of a plan that provides a maid and butler at your bedside and door...well heck and by all means, let them charge more for a policy for the rich for whom very high premiums are a drop in a bucket. The caviat here is that the rich only comprise less than one percent of the population and that is a relatively small pool of customers who are not only well healed, but for the most part, older.

[Hannah Bell]

16. more to the point, you omitted the *most* important fact in your summary of the french system.

[ooglymoogly]

13. +1 All it takes is one glaring fact left out of the argument

to realize we are being had.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

12. Are you sure it doesn't cover 100% of the population?

According to the article:

"Secondly, since 2000, the government now provides health care to those who are not covered by a mandatory regime (those who have never worked and who are not students, meaning the very rich or the very poor). This regime, unlike the worker-financed ones, is financed via general taxation and reimburses at a higher rate than the profession-based system for those who cannot afford to make up the difference."

My cousin has dual French-American citizenship. He worked in the U.S. for a law office that provided healthcare. But the insurer stated that he had a pre-existing condition (his heart) and refused any care. He had to go back to France after many, many years in the U.S. and had no job over there. He received 3 months of intensive medical treatment free of charge, including hospitalization. My father who was not a French citizen went back to France with my mother and was able to obtain free treatment in France (my mother is French). It's my understanding that if you are sick, you simply go to the hospital for treatment and they don't refuse anyone.

[berni_mccoy]

17. According to the article (and backed by sources) 4% choose private medical insurance.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

18. But potentially everyone is covered

If those who choose voluntarily to opt out and get private coverage lose their jobs, have a costly divorce, go bankrupt, or can't afford it anymore, the government will cover them. No one has to go without medical care.

[berni_mccoy]

19. France covers 95% of it's population with the public insurance. 4% have private

the other 1% aren't covered.

US will cover 96% of it's population with policies in the Exchange in the current House Bill. These are policies that are equal to or better than the Public Option.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

20. According to your own article from which I quoted

everyone gets covered, from the richest to the poorest. There's a different track outside mandated care, which relies on general tax funds. As mentioned, members from my family went back there without jobs or money or a recent history of residence there and obtained 100% free care. I think maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean when you mention the fact that some have opted for private care. To me, those individuals are still backed up by the government in case they can't continue to afford private care. To me, that's coverage.

[ipaint]

21. I'm sure the private ins. industry here understands all too well

exactly how universal coverage is attained in all countries who offer a form of it to their citizens. There won't be anything in this bill that will open a door to reducing the power for profit ins. has over all of us.

The french also expanded their own social security program to eventually cover everyone unlike what we are doing today, decades after the french managed it timeline wise. The french as early as 1958, when most where covered by their version of social security, overwhelmingly felt it was the responsibility of the well to cover the sick (95%), unlike here in 2009.
There is no comparison to the government control of the market from the git go in france. Private insurance has a place in the system but it is not at the expense of the health of the people. Private supplemental ins is mostly offered by employers to attract employees as is the case in the majority of universal health care systems worldwide.

Our private ins. giants are a formidable opponent, much more so than anything in france in the early years of reform there, and will only be adequately castrated by a national uprising of the vast majority of people who have had enough and no longer will settle for crumbs and half assed ins. giveaways of taxpayer wealth.
And certainly not by a bought and paid for congress that runs from it's own shadow.

This reform is a bandaid and prolongs the inevitable and more than likely will raise the death toll in the long run. There are no real stops on ins. abuses or any effective cost controls. Laws are only as good as the regulatory agencies that enforce them and ours are full of lobbyists for the industries that are "regulated". You can't ignore that fact and then promise people no more rescission or pre existing condition abuse. You certainly can't mandate payment with no protections.

It also is fair to say no other country has ever instituted reform and had the government plan come in more expensive than the private for profit plans. Defeats the whole purpose.