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Originally Posted by PersonaNonGrata
I heard a radio story about France's much vaunted universal healthcare system that while excellent in terms of care, costs people over 20% of their income, still requires many to buy supplemental insurance through their employers, and is a system $9,000,000,000 in debt. So is our system so bad?
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Our system is not bad at all when compared to others in the world as far as quality of care goes. We do rank in the top 20% (France ranks #1, we rank #37).
However, when you factor in how much we pay for health care compared to the quality we get, then we drop down to near the bottom of the pack. We pay far more than any other country for health care. 20% of income is nothing. If I were to cover my employees, it would easily cost me 30-40% of their income to cover them, and that is with a plan that has deductables for everything.
Do you think because your employer pays for your health care that you are not paying for it yourself? Sure you are. If they did not have to pay for health care, they could increase your salary instead.
As we discussed in another thread, we pay about 80% more per capita for health care than France does. And obviously our results, while pretty good, are not as good as theirs. As with everything else, it's all about what you get for your dollar, and with our health care system, you get very little for your dollar.