France has universal health care paid for with tax money. They also have what is regarded as the best health care in the world (the country of Louis Pasteur and Marie Curie is carrying on the tradition). As many of you know, I had personal experience of that system a few years ago when a medical emergency sent me to the hospital there. I had two surgical operations and was in the hospital in Tours for two months. I can assure you French medicine is both excellent and costs magnitudes less than in the US where some people have excellent medical care and many have none. My two months in the hospital in France cost the equivalent of $6000.00, which would have paid for a weekend in the hospital in the United States at the time. This also included three meals a day for my sister who came each day to be with me.
University Hospital of Tours
By contrast, the title of an article I just read was “US health care debate: A bipartisan drive to lower life expectancy.”
I read in the article:
“According to the Congressional Budget Office report released Monday, 21 million Americans will lose [health care] coverage by 2020, and 24 million by 2026. How many of these people will die as a consequence?
“Under the Republican House plan, a 64-year-old worker earning $26,500 will see his or her premium increase from $1,700 to $14,600 by 2026 due to the disproportionate cuts in tax credits for older consumers. A 21-year-old earning the same amount would see his or her premium drop from $1,700 to $1,450.
“In so far as overall premiums drop, this is because older workers—whose health care costs are higher—will simply leave the market because they can no longer pay for insurance. The result will be a sharp increase in mortality and fall in life expectancy, which is already on the decline in the US due to the rise in suicides, drug abuse and other social ills.”
Read the complete article here.
This is not the description of medical care in a developed country. The US could have health care like that of other countries, but it will require a revolution in thinking and in practice.