Man describes long wait time for emergency surgery in France

Do you claim to have expertise in the economics of US vs EU style healthcare?

 

Norway is a rich country with a relatively small population and has lots of money from revenue from offshore gas, so can pay for lots of free things.

It's a similar situation in Arab Gulf countries with lots of oil.

I read the government of Norway has saved up something like the equivalent of one million per person of their population, so that's a lot of available public money they are sitting on top of.

 

You can't stereotype an entire system with one single example. I could probably produce some horror story about the US system as well.

 

That may be true, but something like what happened to this man probably never would have happened in the US.
All US hospitals would have some emergency doctor available on call, or if not they'd airlift them by helicopter to another hospital.

Probably at least a part of this was cultural too, since the French have a more care-free way of life, and a doctor probably doesn't want to be constantly on call during his off hours.

 

How can you know someone has never waited too long for an operation in the modern history of the US? I agree that people have younger waits for specialists in France, but you need to provide data not anecdotes.

 

This is written by an American for god knows what purpose.
The vernacular is absolutely American. We don't park anywhere.and obviously, he lived.

BTW surgery is not due to one doctor. Analysis and surgery needs a team.

 

In France certain conditions are free, paid by the state through taxation.
These include cancer and heart conditions.

WE PAY FOR OUR OWN CHOSEN PLANS THROUGH INSURANCE COMPANIES.
they are called mutuels and we can adjust what we choose to pay for down to supplements for single rooms.
NO ONE gets free care they have not paid into except those two conditions.

 

No.
Very few able bodied migrants capable of walking hundreds or thousands of miles need expensive care.
If they are accepted into France they pay tax which covers their basic needs.
If not they find care where they can or go through benefits.
It is factored into the state budget but isn't a big deal.

 

How about when they get older? (which they eventually will) Or how about when they have children?

How much would private insurance cost to provide for a person if the government did not pay for all healthcare?
(In the U.S. it costs nearly 4000 dollars a year for a 25-year-old, which is also about 4000 euro right now)

We all know that even if migrants were exempted from all other tax, they would (as a group) still be unable to pay for their own healthcare and their children's schooling.

 

The average person in France earns 40,000 per year. I don't know what it is in France, but in the U.S. the average migrant household (not counting those who came on special work visas) probably has an income around 60 percent lower than the average U.S. household. (average is what matters for tax base calculations, not median)

But the disparity is probably even greater than that for several reasons. Migrants tend to cluster in or close to higher cost of living areas in parts of the country where average incomes are greater. And then the amount of tax that a household pays and can afford to pay is not just in linear proportion to their amount of income; at lower income levels it becomes more difficult to pay the same percentage of tax.

But to think about this actually requires some complicated thinking, logic, and math.

 

Older people are covered for cancer and heart conditions and issues relating to those.
They elect to pay for other conditions.
Education in France is free and obligatory.
Look I am not here to give you lessons in the French social security rules.
Come back when you have done some research.

 

You completely miss my point.

It's not "free".

Add more people and you will be paying for it. And that will probably be in the form of lower quality of care and longer lines, and there will end up being a cost paid in healthcare outcomes and lives.

Get it through your head that funding is NOT going to just automatically increase in proportion to any increase in the country's population.
If you think that, you don't really understand economics very well.
If you joined a rich country where the average person earned 40,000 a year, and a poor country where the average person earner 10,000 a year, and just combined those two countries together, what do you think would happen?

 

I never said it was free.
OK?
I said we pay what we choose to compliment our personal needs.
Nor did I ever say any of the other stuff. And your question is nonsense.

Look. I am getting to think you are following me around looking for an argument of your own making.
Any more of this recreation of my posts for your confrontational pleasure will be awarded by an ignore.
I didn't come here to argue your revisions of my posts. I came here to discuss issues with those who can read what is posted and remain on topic, hopefully with some knowledge of the subject.
Which is why I suggested that if you wish to discuss the French health system, you learn something about it first.

 

Seriously? Who expects instant response for non-life-threatening complaints? ESPECIALLY when it's not even technically a disease state.

I think the problem lies with these rather absurd expectations.

 

No we don't.
The vast number of migrants who stay in France make a decent living and pay their taxes.
The largest number come from French outre-mer or older French colonies and are given less stringent residency conditions . Those in the first category are already French citizens.
I dont see why I should spend my time discussing French law with someone who assumes it is the same as American law.

To return to French health, and having spent over five years closely involved in it, after experiencing 40 years of UK health provision even when it was better there is no comparison. The French have a brilliant health system and no one goes bankrupt because they suddenly need care.i knew a successful self employed American who was hit from behind by an uninsured driver. He ennded up living in a sad caravan in a dirt lot outside Dallas.
Sort your own system out and stop picking at something you know nothing about.

 

Like their Obstetric outcomes. Worst in the developed world.

 

That's not really true.
The quality of medical care in the U.S. is nearly the best in the world, for those who can afford it. What happens is there's a small segment of the population who can't afford those medical appointments, so they avoid seeing the doctor, can end up resulting in devastating outcomes, and then that drives the entire statistics down. If one excluded that bottom 20%, the outcomes would look just as good or probably a little better than any country in Europe.
It is kind of absurd to include people in the outcome statistics when they are not actually a part of that medical care system so much. And that is the major problem in the U.S. There's a sizable portion of the population who kind of get excluded (in part if not entirely) from access to the medical care system.

What people from other countries (Canada, Western Europe) might not realize about healthcare in the U.S. is that wait times are almost non-existent, and hospitals have very little reluctance to perform a test or perform a procedure even if that test or procedure may not be absolutely essential. Unless you're part of a very cheap HMO plan, if you want a knee replacement, doctors can usually schedule the surgery within 2 weeks. Even "wait times", when they do exist, typically don't involve longer than 2 or 3 months, and that's almost always only for things that are not very urgent. There are no "lines" for surgery. But that may be because you will be paying out the nose for it.

 

Anyone else want to point out that you can't boast best by excluding what makes it less best.

 

Yes it is. Check Obstetric mortality (infant and maternal deaths) rankings, worldwide. America is way too low on that list.

 

Here you go:

Despite spending two and half times more per person on health than the OECD average, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. increased from 12 to 14 deaths per 100,000 live births from 1990 to 2015, putting the United States at 46th in the world.21 Mar 2022

 

Y'all know that, by law, you can't be denied emergency services in the USA. One complaint about that was, illegals and other uninsured were over taxing the system by using the ER as their primary care.

 

You think no one waits 8 hrs in US? My wife waited 3 days on hospital corridor for an MRI. When the bill came in, it was over $5000 per day.....for laying on a bed in the corridor.

 

And why didn't you take your wife home and simply tell the hospital to give you a call one or two hours before they had an opening available for the MRI machine?

Maybe you live in a more rural part of Florida that is underserved?

 

Because it was head injury and they wanted to keep her in the hospital. It was Cleveland Clinic in Ft Lauderdale / Weston, one of the least rural areas in Florida.

There is nothing unusual in waiting for 8 hrs for service. I wait months to see my doctor or dermatologist.