France Has the Best Healthcare System in the World

August 20th, 2011 by admin Leave a reply »

Because the Usa struggles toward a system of universal healthcare, many have looked at the Canadian health care system as a model. Only a few have looked toward France. This is a mistake not less than 2 reasons.

First, based on the World Health Organization (WHO), France has got the best health care system in the world . It’s been widely reported that the WHO found the French system to become number 1 as the Canadian product is number 30 and also the U.S. number 37.

It should be noted here that the WHO rankings actually contain multiple rankings and also the numbers generally quoted are the ranking based on the measure that the WHO calls the OP ranking. OP has been said to measure “overall performance” adjusted to reflect a country’s performance depending on how well it theoretically could have performed. When reporting the rankings of just one for France, 30 for Canada and 37 for that Usa, it’s the OP ranking getting used.

Why did in france they system do so well within the WHO rankings? The French system excels in 4 areas:

* It provides universal coverage
* It has responsive health care providers
* Patients have freedom of choice
* The health and longevity from the population

Second, you should be looking more closely in the French system because it has more similarities with the U.S. system than either the Canadian or British system. Many Americans assume that in france they product is like the system in Britain. Nothing could be more wrong or even more insulting to the French.

Exactly like the United States, in france they system relies on both private insurance and government insurance. Also, just like in the usa, people generally obtain insurance through their employer. What’s different is the fact that everyone in France has health insurance. Every legal resident of France has access to healthcare under the law of universal coverage called la Couverture maladie universelle.

Underneath the French system, medical health insurance is a branch of Social Security or the S�curit� Sociale. The system is funded primarily by taxing the salaries of workers. An employee in France pays about 20% of their salary to fund the S�curit� Sociale. These taxes represent about 60% of the price of the insurance plan.

The balance of the funding comes from self employed, who pay more than salaried workers, by indirect taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Finally, additional taxes are levied against other income, both indirect and direct.

The French share exactly the same distaste for restrictions on patient choice as American do. In france they system depends on autonomous private practitioners rather than a British-style national health service. The French are extremely dismissive of the British system which they call “socialized medicine.” Almost all physicians in France take part in the country’s public medical health insurance, S�curit� Sociale.

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