France Fights Universal Care's High Cost

[dalegg 143]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

Is this in addition to their higher income tax rates, like our FICA?

Edited August 9, 2009 by dalegg

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

Is this in addition to their higher income tax rates, like our FICA?

It's the total expenditure on health care. The US spends well over 7K per capita per year, the industrialized countries spend half that, on average. There's no country spending as much per capita or as percentage on GDP on health care as the US and yet, we're the only country in that club that doesn't offer universal coverage. Pretty bad any way you look at it.

[dalegg 143]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

Is this in addition to their higher income tax rates, like our FICA?

It's the total expenditure on health care. The US spends well over 7K per capita per year, the industrialized countries spend half that, on average. There's no country spending as much per capita or as percentage on GDP on health care as the US and yet, we're the only country in that club that doesn't offer universal coverage. Pretty bad any way you look at it.

Well wait a minute though. The article is saying that they're not meeting costs. Its not fair to say that they are spending less if they aren't able to pay the bills on what they pay!

Edited August 9, 2009 by dalegg

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

Is this in addition to their higher income tax rates, like our FICA?

It's the total expenditure on health care. The US spends well over 7K per capita per year, the industrialized countries spend half that, on average. There's no country spending as much per capita or as percentage on GDP on health care as the US and yet, we're the only country in that club that doesn't offer universal coverage. Pretty bad any way you look at it.

Well wait a minute though. The article is saying that they're not meeting costs. Its not fair to say that they are spending less if they aren't able to pay the bills on what they pay!

It means that their collections aren't enough to cover expenses - this is where deficit spending comes in. We have that, too.

[dalegg 143]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

Is this in addition to their higher income tax rates, like our FICA?

It's the total expenditure on health care. The US spends well over 7K per capita per year, the industrialized countries spend half that, on average. There's no country spending as much per capita or as percentage on GDP on health care as the US and yet, we're the only country in that club that doesn't offer universal coverage. Pretty bad any way you look at it.

Well wait a minute though. The article is saying that they're not meeting costs. Its not fair to say that they are spending less if they aren't able to pay the bills on what they pay!

It means that their collections aren't enough to cover expenses - this is where deficit spending comes in. We have that, too.

But we are trying to not increase the deficit here. That's the whole arguement. If they have higher taxes than us, and they still can't pay for this, it makes me nervous as to what our abilities would be.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

Is this in addition to their higher income tax rates, like our FICA?

It's the total expenditure on health care. The US spends well over 7K per capita per year, the industrialized countries spend half that, on average. There's no country spending as much per capita or as percentage on GDP on health care as the US and yet, we're the only country in that club that doesn't offer universal coverage. Pretty bad any way you look at it.

Well wait a minute though. The article is saying that they're not meeting costs. Its not fair to say that they are spending less if they aren't able to pay the bills on what they pay!

It means that their collections aren't enough to cover expenses - this is where deficit spending comes in. We have that, too.

But we are trying to not increase the deficit here. That's the whole arguement. If they have higher taxes than us, and they still can't pay for this, it makes me nervous as to what our abilities would be.

Wait a second. We're saying that France spends 10.5% of their GDP on health care. We spend over 16% - a number projected to grow to 25% in the very near future. The fact that the French do not collect in taxes and/or premiums to cover their health care expenses - which are far lower than ours - that's an issue separate to that of us aspiring to get to a more efficient system of health care delivery that would bring our total health care spending more in line with that of competing nations. How we end up funding it is then secondary as we would spend less than we would if we stay on the current trajectory.

In other words, I think the funding for health care running 10-11% of the GDP is a heck of a lot easier to accomplish than funding 16+% going on 25%.

Edited August 9, 2009 by Mr. Big Dog

[luckytxn 2,264]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

The USA pays a little over 16% of national income for health care.

And the rate of inflation for healthcare in France is lower than in the USA, so with reform in the USA, the gap will continue to spread.

So, luckytxn, it looks like the answer to your question is "yes".

If you ration and deny health care and do not spend more to open more hospitals and clinics and just generally pay under what things cost then yes one nation can save money on health care. The U.S. spends a lot and gets quality care and never wait for any procedure or test to be done here. This article showed what the health care is like in France and the government not spending enough on their socialized health care and the taxes need to be raised to get their level of quality up to ours here in the U.S.

[luckytxn 2,264]

Research Topic: Health Care

Of the $2.1 trillion the United States spends on health care, nearly $650 billion is above expected, even when adjusting for the relative wealth of the U.S. economy.

Outpatient care, which includes same-day hospital visits and is by far the largest and fastest-growing part of the U.S. health system, accounts for $436 billion, or two-thirds of spending above expected. Fueling this growth are a number of supply- and demand-related factors, including (1) provider capacity growth in response to high outpatient margins; (2) the judgment-based nature of physician care; (3) technological innovation that drives prices higher rather than lower; (4) demand growth that appears to be due to greater availability of supply; and (5) relatively price-insensitive patients with limited out-of-pocket costs.

Elsewhere in the U.S. health system, drugs and health care administration represent additional areas where spending is above expected. Drug costs represent $98 billion, or 15 percent of spending above expected, driven by higher prices and the use in the United States of a more expensive mix of drugs. Health administration costs represent $91 billion, or 14 percent of total spending above expected, due partly to the system structure, but also on account of inefficiencies and redundancies that exist within the system.

While many might argue that higher health care spending is a consequence of demand due to the fact that Americans are sicker than people in other OECD countries, MGI analysis suggests that Americans are collectively slightly healthier than the citizens of these peer countries. Moreover, the evidence on whether the United States offers additional value for all the additional money spent on health care is mixed.

MGI's analysis of the underlying dynamics of health care economics in the United States highlights the principal issues that reformers should consider with respect to demand, supply, and intermediation. On the demand side, issues include the need to create an appropriate level of price sensitivity while equipping patients with the right information and incentives to enable them to become more value conscious consumers. Also needed are preventative efforts that present the largest opportunity to improve general health and thereby reduce costs. On the supply side, there is a need to address the cost inflation cycle resulting from high priced technologies while retaining the beneficial aspects of innovation in the U.S. health system. In terms of intermediation, reformers should address the misaligned incentives resulting from fee-for-service reimbursement, the predominant payment method for outpatient care. Here, Medicare and Medicaid can create market leadership toward desired change in the system.

Reform won't be easy. But armed with facts about where and how much above expectation the United States spends on health care, and about the underlying economic dynamics at work in the system, policy makers have a better chance of curbing the growth of costs.

[luckytxn 2,264]

The Mythology of Health Care Reform

by Michael D. Tanner

This article appeared on Foxnews, March 3, 2006.

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ealth care is once again moving to the top of the national political agenda. The early evidence is that this debate will be dominated by misinformation and misconceptions. Advocates of a government-run, national health-care system will do everything they can to frighten Americans and discredit consumer-directed health care. But we would be advised to look at the facts and not the scare tactics.

The Claim: The U.S. spends too much on health care.

The Facts: It is true that the United States spends more on health care than any other country. Why is that a bad thing? There is no "right" amount to spend on health care or anything else. The United States spends more on athletic shoes than any other country. No one speaks of the athletic shoe crisis.

Michael Tanner is the director of health and welfare studies at the and director of Cato's Project on Social Security Choice.

More by Michael D. Tanner

Economists consider health care a "normal good," meaning that spending rises or falls with income. As incomes rise, people demand more and better health care. America's wealth determines its spending on healthcare.

The real problem is the fact that the people spending the money are not the people paying the bills. Because those purchasing health care are able to pass the bill onto third parties, the usual market disciplines don't apply. True health-care reform would focus on giving consumers a greater stake in the decision-making process.

The Claim: Though we spend more, we get less.

The Facts: America offers the highest quality health care in the world. Most of the world's top doctors, hospitals and research facilities are located in the United States. Eighteen of the last 25 winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine either are U.S. citizens or work here. U.S. companies have developed half of all the major new medicines introduced worldwide over the past 20 years. And Americans played a key role in 80 percent of the most important medical advances of the past 30 years.

If you are diagnosed with a serious illness, the United States is the place you want to be. Tens of thousands of patients from around the world come to this country every year for treatment.

Critics of American health care often point out that other countries have higher life expectancies or lower infant mortality rates, but those two indicators are bad ways to measure the quality of a nation's health-care system. In the United States, very low-birth-weight infants have a much greater chance of being brought to term with the latest medical technologies. Some of those low-birth-weight babies die soon after birth, which boosts our infant mortality rate, but in many other Western countries, those high-risk, low-birth-weight infants are not included when infant mortality is calculated.

Life expectancies are also affected by other factors like violent crime, poverty, obesity, tobacco, and drug use, and other issues unrelated to health care. When you compare the outcome for specific diseases like cancer or heart disease, the United States outperforms the rest of the world.

The Claim: A government-run health-care system would expand access to care.

The Facts: The one common characteristic of all national health care systems is that they ration care. Sometimes they ration it by denying certain types of treatment altogether. More often, they ration indirectly, imposing cost constraints through budgets, waiting lines, or limited technology. One million Britons are waiting for admission to National Health Service hospitals at any given time, and shortages force the NHS to cancel as many as 100,000 operations each year. Roughly 90,000 New Zealanders are facing similar waits. In Sweden, the wait for heart surgery can be as long as 25 weeks. In Canada more than 800,000 patients are currently on waiting lists for medical procedures.

The Claim: Health care is too complex for average Americans to make decisions about price and quality.

The Facts: Health care is increasingly high-tech and complex, but so are many other products and services that Americans purchase everyday without specialized expertise. A consumer does not need to know how an internal combustion engine works in order to buy a reliable car, or how silicon chips are manufactured before he selects a computer. When consumers have good information about product prices, quality and safety, they naturally gravitate toward the goods and services that offer the highest value for the lowest price.

There are numerous studies that show health-care consumers make decisions about price and quality. The current problem with the healthcare sector is that there isn't enough good information available for consumers to make sound decisions about which healthcare provider or facilities offer the best value. But that's rapidly changing as providers respond to increased consumer empowerment.

At the same time, patient advocacy companies are springing up to help health-care consumers make informed choices. When consumers, rather than insurers or employers, control the money, markets naturally respond.

The U.S. health-care system represents one-seventh of the American economy, and is literally a matter of life and death for millions of Americans. Here's hoping that they'll be able to sort the facts from the fallacies in the coming debate.

[luckytxn 2,264]

From the article before and reading it seems that we in America do a lot of elective surgical procedures. Doctors here also seem to order a lot of tests that may be not needed but must be done to be sure they have done everything possible to get to the right decision. Also as has been posted before Medicare pays less then is needed so these costs have to be passed on. I asked my wife cousin the other day why they even take medicare or medicaid patients if they don't pay the total costs that are needed and he told me that they have to do so if they get any funding whatsoever from the government from even one patient.

Now does the plastic surgeries bring the costs for all of us up? Yes a bit it does. Does all of our innovations and availability make what we pay more? Yes undoubtedly it does some. Does malpractice cost? Yes some. We have awesome health care here in the states as testament to the many people from around the world that comes here to take advantage of it. Great medical care is costly and we do have great medical here. Spend less and you get less as the other nations have found out.

Also needed to add that the many people that come here and spend billions a year on health care from other countries goes onto our books on spending of health care.

Edited August 9, 2009 by luckytxn

[Tahoma 2,292]

Thanks for the article, AJ. It was a good read.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

The USA pays a little over 16% of national income for health care.

And the rate of inflation for healthcare in France is lower than in the USA, so with reform in the USA, the gap will continue to spread.

So, luckytxn, it looks like the answer to your question is "yes".

If you ration and deny health care and do not spend more to open more hospitals and clinics and just generally pay under what things cost then yes one nation can save money on health care. The U.S. spends a lot and gets quality care and never wait for any procedure or test to be done here. This article showed what the health care is like in France and the government not spending enough on their socialized health care and the taxes need to be raised to get their level of quality up to ours here in the U.S.

Sorry but there really isn't any quality indicator that supports the claim that the quality of health care in the US is better than in other OECD nations. I quoted the physician/population ratio, nurse/population ratio, hospital bed/population ratio above and the US lags the OECD average on all those indicators. In terms of outcomes: Seeing that the life expectancy in the US is below the OECD average, I don't really know how you support this claim that the US has the best health care system. It doesn't. What we have is the most expensive and least efficient system. On that end nobody beats us. How sad.

Edited August 9, 2009 by Mr. Big Dog

[luckytxn 2,264]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

The USA pays a little over 16% of national income for health care.

And the rate of inflation for healthcare in France is lower than in the USA, so with reform in the USA, the gap will continue to spread.

So, luckytxn, it looks like the answer to your question is "yes".

If you ration and deny health care and do not spend more to open more hospitals and clinics and just generally pay under what things cost then yes one nation can save money on health care. The U.S. spends a lot and gets quality care and never wait for any procedure or test to be done here. This article showed what the health care is like in France and the government not spending enough on their socialized health care and the taxes need to be raised to get their level of quality up to ours here in the U.S.

Sorry but there really isn't any quality indicator that supports the claim that the quality of health care in the US is better than in other OECD nations. I quoted the physician/population ratio, nurse/population ratio, hospital bed/population ratio above and the US lags the OECD average on all those indicators. In terms of outcomes: Seeing that the life expectancy in the US is below the OECD average, I don't really know how you support this claim that the US has the best health care system. It doesn't. What we have is the most expensive and least efficient system. On that end nobody beats us. How sad.

Well if you will read all the postings I have been doing you will see why but of course it is easier to spout off your sheep talk.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

The USA pays a little over 16% of national income for health care.

And the rate of inflation for healthcare in France is lower than in the USA, so with reform in the USA, the gap will continue to spread.

So, luckytxn, it looks like the answer to your question is "yes".

If you ration and deny health care and do not spend more to open more hospitals and clinics and just generally pay under what things cost then yes one nation can save money on health care. The U.S. spends a lot and gets quality care and never wait for any procedure or test to be done here. This article showed what the health care is like in France and the government not spending enough on their socialized health care and the taxes need to be raised to get their level of quality up to ours here in the U.S.

Sorry but there really isn't any quality indicator that supports the claim that the quality of health care in the US is better than in other OECD nations. I quoted the physician/population ratio, nurse/population ratio, hospital bed/population ratio above and the US lags the OECD average on all those indicators. In terms of outcomes: Seeing that the life expectancy in the US is below the OECD average, I don't really know how you support this claim that the US has the best health care system. It doesn't. What we have is the most expensive and least efficient system. On that end nobody beats us. How sad.

Well if you will read all the postings I have been doing you will see why but of course it is easier to spout off your sheep talk.

Sorry, I take official records over opinion pieces. Take a look at actual numbers. You might see a bit clearer. Nah, scratch that. You won't.

[mendeleev 68]

And our socialized medicine is supposed to keep costs down huh?

France pays about 10.5% of national income for health care. That includes the private accounts that most French people take out.

The USA pays a little over 16% of national income for health care.

And the rate of inflation for healthcare in France is lower than in the USA, so with reform in the USA, the gap will continue to spread.

So, luckytxn, it looks like the answer to your question is "yes".

If you ration and deny health care and do not spend more to open more hospitals and clinics and just generally pay under what things cost then yes one nation can save money on health care. The U.S. spends a lot and gets quality care and never wait for any procedure or test to be done here. This article showed what the health care is like in France and the government not spending enough on their socialized health care and the taxes need to be raised to get their level of quality up to ours here in the U.S.

Please, don't tell me we don't ration health care now.

When CIGNA decided the hospital my doctor went to, overruling my preference to send her to a better one, and chose the doctors at that hospital that would take care of her, in decisions they later told me were driven partly by cost considerations, they made choices against her interest. If she had had better care, she might have lived.

But CIGNA rationed her care.

Market economies are all about rationing. That is exactly what money is: it is a means to determine who much of what you want you get. It would be great if rationing were done in ways that improved choice (unlike what my daughter got) and improved care and outcomes. To claim that we do not ration healthcare in the USA is, at best, delusional and disingenuous and at worst blatantly dishonest.