Frugal Café Blog Zone

Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on August 28, 2009

More alarming news from overseas about government-run health care. Now, it’s growing problems in France.

From NewsBusters, French Health Care Expert: France’s System Broken, Should Copy US; Media Yawn:

Alert Michael Moore! Both he and the World Health Organization say France has the best health care system in the world, and America’s system is barely better than Slovenia’s. However, French professor Alice Teil not only said the French system is “not sustainable anymore,” but copying parts of America’s could save it.

Teil turned to a privately-owned hospital in Utah after a survey of international health care experts ranked Salt Lake City’s Intermountain Health Care the number one hospital in the world. You would think that a media so hyper-worried about the “broken” US health care system would report the encouraging news, but other than some bare bones local coverage, this story was ignored.

[...]

Contrary to the media standard portrayal of top-rated French health care, Teil stated that the system of “free” unlimited care requires high taxes, and with unlimited care, including costly sex-change operations, in vitro fertilization and alternative medicine, France has a dying system and should look to America for a fix, especially now that the French protested rationing benefits and the government stopped bailing out over-budget public hospitals…

Maybe it was ignored because Teil’s startling description of France’s situation did not match the media’s typical positive depiction of “free” health care.

[...]

As far as Democrats and advocates of “free” health care are concerned, it’s a good thing that the media ignored a story about the sorry state of the “best” health care system in the world.

From John Stossel, ABC News, More Problems with French Health Care:

…For instance, in France, people with long-term diseases get 100% coverage (similar to, say, Medicare for patients with end-stage kidney diseases). The government proposed trimming coverage not directly related to a patient’s primary illness — a sore throat for someone with diabetes, for example. The proposal created such public outcry that French Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot later said the 100% coverage rule was “set in stone” …

Even the smallest budget moves are proving controversial. Local residents are up in arms over a cost-cutting measure that makes patients pay €1.10 an hour to park at the hospital. “It’s a scandal,” says retired local Communist politician Gérard Eude. “It goes against the very idea of universal health care.”

From San Francisco Chronicle, France’s Cautionary Tale:

…When costs became a political issue, the government mounted a cost crackdown. But instead of eliminating inefficiencies through greater individual responsibility, broader choice and more competition, the French government did precisely the opposite: It sought to control costs by fiat – that is, by piling on more bureaucracy.

The results haven’t been pretty.

For instance, French citizens used to be able to choose their physician and specialist surgeons, with the resulting competition ensuring that patient care was prioritized. But in 2004, the French government instituted a mandatory “coordinated care pathway” that dictated which doctors and specialists a patient could see. Today, if patients decide to get care outside this coordinated pathway, they are heavily penalized through lower reimbursements.

Physician autonomy is also under attack. Private physicians have the right to set up shop wherever they see fit. The government plans to remove this freedom to reverse what it views as wasteful oversupply.

Unfortunately, such central planning by government officials is unlikely to allocate resources efficiently. And many are predicting that France will soon experience physician shortages for the first time.

The government also thought it could cut costs by putting in a bureaucratically mandated payment structure that clinics and hospitals should charge. But this can backfire. Too often, artificially low fees don’t represent the true value of services. As a result, clinics and hospitals could refuse to treat people with some diseases – especially if it costs more to treat them than is recognized by the authorities.

Rarely a week goes by without the government coming up with some new cost-cutting scheme, in which it uses its power over the insurance system to direct health care toward its own ends. Yet almost every one of these government interventions has failed to rein in costs…

From Right Pundits, France’s Disastrous Universal Healthcare:

…It’s a near-monopoly, where the low amounts paid to doctors per visit ($32 at the office, $38 for house calls) essentially guarantee a permanent shortage of general practitioners.

France enjoys a reputation of “excellent government-provided healthcare”. Regular readers of my blog know that reputation is not justified. For instance, last January 14 French Minister for Health Roselyne Bachelot confirmed that 10,000 people die every year of “medical accidents”, and there are an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 “serious undesirable events” i.e., errors per year.

France’s system is plagued with long-term problems. During a heat wave six years ago 15,000 elderly and frail people died, since the country’s poorly-prepared hospitals meant those patients never stood a chance. Many of them died of dehydration in the emergency rooms waiting for an IV.

Three years later, the country was still not prepared for a similar heat wave.

Would you call that top notch service?

From Bruce Kesler, Top Ten Reasons For ObamaCare Are Based On False Information:

…This OECD analysis also corrects per capita health spending to use price parity (comparative purchasing power) instead of oscillating currency exchange rates. The decline of the dollar compared to the Euro in the past decade did not increase the US’ comparative costs per person by 55%. In fact, other OECD countries’ health spending is understated by 56%, and “the US is no longer the highest [spending] country. France and Norway exceed the US in real health care consumption.”

More health care links:
Right Voices: Hey MSM, You Forgot To Report That France’s Health Care System Broken and Should Copy US!
Wall Street Journal: France Fights Universal Care’s High Cost
MensNewsDaily: The Real Cost Of Health Care In France
Irish Election: The next healthcare scandal?
The Great White Hunter: Obamacare Gives Health Bureaucrats Access to Your Tax Records
BBC News: ‘Basic care’ lacking in hospitals and Fear over NHS compensation scale
The Brussels Journal: Death of the Grown-Up in France
Telegraph: ‘Cruel and neglectful’ care of one million NHS patients exposed and Sufferers pull out teeth due to lack of dentists
The Weekly Standard: Choosy Moms Don’t Choose Socialized Medicine
CNS News: Fixing the Health-Care System Requires Market Changes, Not a Government Takeover, Major Economists Say
Hot Air: Video: Bachmann zaps heckler over maternity care
Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: Rush Was Right: Dems Call For “The Kennedy Memorial Health Bill” and Throw Out The Democratic Health Care Sponge
Wellsy’s World: Canadian health system “not sustainable,” looking to privatize
A Time For Choosing: Sarah Palin Continues To Help Shine The Light On Obama’s Corruption
Ann Coulter, Townhall: Liberal Lies in National Health Care: Second in a Series
Fort Peck Journal, Health Care Reform: IHS “horror” stories
Arlenearmy’s Blog: Will Doctors Bail Out?
Frugal Café Blog Zone: More Socialized Medicine Horror: Giving Birth in UK Hospitals Hazardous to New Mothers – Shortage of Beds, Thousands Give Birth in Bathrooms, Corridors and “War on Senior Citizens”: Mark Levin Interviews Dr. Betsy McCaughey on ObamaCare Details and Dems’ Sheep-herding Health Welfare Program Like Eastern Bloc: Reckless Disregard for Economic & Fiscal Reality
Hot Air: Dems’ new rallying cry: Let’s pass this trillion-dollar travesty for Teddy and Coming up: circumcision campaigns
VotingFemale Speaks!: ObamaCare = ObamaSnoop; Socialist Backdoor to everything you hold PRIVATE! and Obama-Pelosi Declare WAR; Demonizing Health Industry; Warning, Socialist Demons At Work
WSJ Blog, Washington Wire: Kennedy’s Death Spurs Calls to Pass Health Legislation
The Western Experience: British health care at its best!
Bulletproof Diction: The Honorable Sir Edward Moore Kennedy Amendment
Patterico’s Pontifications: The Tedward Lovefest: Candidate for Health Care Sainthood Has One Teensy, Weensy Little Blemish on His Health Care Record
Wall Street Journal, Law Blog: Ted Kennedy’s Succession Plan: The NYT Comes Out Against It
The Anchoress, First Things: Ted Kennedy, Healthcare & Purgatory
The Xtremist: Ted Kennedy’s Ghost Will Be Spotted Asking For ObamaCare
The B.S. Report: Video Of The Day: Glenn Beck; AARP: Leading The Elderly To The Slaughter?
American Spectator: Honoring Teddy By Opposing Health Care
Gathering of Eagles: NY: They Will Use Any Wretched Event To Try To Pass Obamacare
Amused Cynic: Obama disses Urologists….Who you callin’ “wee-weed up,” Kemosabe?
Ztower: “I say toh-mah-toh, you say toh-may-toh, you say poh-tah-to, I say poh-tay-toh…let’s call the whole thing off!”
Coloradoan.com: Markey: Medicare will take hit
Indian Country Today: Trahant: The double standard of government-run health care: Indian Health Service
Mommy: Ta’Shon’s Story: A Look at the Government’s Record on Health Care
HoodaThunk?: The single-payer healthcare system in our own backyard.
Right Angles: Single-payer horror stories
Goodtimepolitics: 1,200 Veterans Falsely Told by VA They had Fatal Disease and Birth on pavement ‘after being refused ambulance’
Track-A-’Crat: Another Health Care Victim
Ann Coulter, TownHall: Take Two Aspirin and Call Me When Your Cancer is Stage 4

Categories: Business & Economy, Conservatism, Government, Health, Media & Communication, Social and Political Climate, Videos, Audio Files
Tags: Alice Teil, America, Americans against ObamaCare, doctor shortage, Europe, France, French system, government regulation, government waste, government-run health care, health care, Michael Moore, nationalized health care, ObamaCare, universal health care