France Best, US Worst in Preventable Death Ranking

A recent study has found that France is best and the US worst in rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations. This is considered an overall gauge of the quality of health care in the countries involved.

France did best -- with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002 and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per 100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers said. After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, with the United States last. A key factor in the poor showing of the US is that 47 million US citizens lack any kind of health insurance while in every other case all citizens are fully insured by national health care insurance. If the US health care system performed as well as the top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer preventable deaths per year.

But these studies miss the point. The US health care system is excellent for those who can afford access to it just as the education system is excellent for those who can afford access to it. The US is committed to a way of life that provides excellence for those who can afford it and crap for those who can't. This, of course, brings the averages down when people conduct studies based on overall measures of goodness or performance. Other advanced industrialized nations provide health care and education as a matter of course for all their citizens and hence are more egalitarian than the US. The US way of life is "Money talks; merde walks." In other words the US is based on privatized solutions to social welfare which are inherently unequal while other advanced countries are more socialist in nature. There is more of a welfarist component and a concern for the average citizen. The US government, at least under the Republicans, is committed to privatizing everything. Therefore, all welfare will be privately commodified and bought and sold with those who can't afford it forced out of the welfare market whether that market is for health, education, recreation, retirement or what have you.

In France education is free or almost free from the age of 2 through graduate  studies.

Education is almost free at all levels (tuition $100 a year at Sorbonne) except for private schools and business schools. 26% of university students receive scholarships. But it is a fact that French Universities do not offer as many services and facilities as American univeristies and from this standpoint, only Grandes Ecoles compare to the US system.

Annual costs for a student at the prestigious Sorbonne are less than $300! Meanwhile, in the US students are paying $50,000. to $100,000. per year and have to borrow huge sums of money from predatory loan operations like Sallie Mae which used to be government owned but now is completely privatized and corporatized complete with huge CEO salary. Administrative costs (read CEO  salaries and advertising) for private corporations are much higher in the US than in Europe whether it be for health care or education. The profit motive drives up these costs and makes the operations much less efficient than when the service is government provided to the public.

Unheard of in the US is the way the French support families:

The Family system (Allocations Familiales) is a financial help to all families (whatever their income) plus various services such as day-care or vacation centers (according to income) ; when a family is expecting a child, it gets approximately 2,000 Euros in three installments (the first two of them corresponding to a mandatory medical visit, the third to the birth) ; then the family receives a monthly allowance till the child is 20 (for two children or more, around 100 Euros/month/child).

And the retirement system is provided by the state not by private employers or the stock market. In fact French funding for retirees is not invested in the stock market so it is independent of market fluctuations and boom or bust cycles. In the US employer provided pensions have been largely replaced with employee funded 401ks. The difference is that the employee must now bear the risks associated with the market and could well end up with nothing at retirement even though he or she has invested consistently over the course of a lifetime. Risks have been shifted from employer to employee.

In France social security provides about 750 euros per month (about $1125.) to anyone who has worked 40 years. Note that it does not depend on the amount of money you have made as in the US system where high wage earners who have paid more into the system receive more than low wage earners. Everyone receives the same amount.

Contrary to what most Americans believe, the French government run social security system is more efficient than US privatized corporate provided systems with the administrative cost of the health care system being around 4.5% (for US private insurance companies it's 10 to 13%) and 1.2% for the retirement system (vs. around 10% for most pension funds).

Finally, consider what kind of society you want to live in: one that exhibits compassion towards its citizens, one where there truly is a social contract, or one that is devoted to the private pursuit of profit at all costs including leaving a substantial number of its citizens by the wayside and out in the  cold. Michael Moore dramatized the contradictions in US society contrasted with the beneficence of the French most effectively in his movie Sicko.

Health : by all standards the French health system compares very favorably to the US system. It is based on a moral and political consensus that protecting the health of citizens, and keeping them from what can be avoided in the trauma of illness and death, is one of the major responsibilities of the Society as a whole. Therefore, the State ensures that everybody is protected and people consider it to be in charge of controlling the quality of the health system and of regulating all its private and public players, including corporations which must contribute equally to it. The results : 100% people covered (see CMU), for a cost 30 or 40% [less than] America's (11,1% of GNP vs. more than 14% in the US) and with better results (see better ratios : life expectancy, infantile mortality, obesity, etc). The French are astonished when they are told that more than 40 million Americans have no health coverage (and even more no dental coverage). Being worried about the health bill does not exist in France. The social consensus is : "it is sad enough to be sick and one must not have an additional money problem about it". Saying "it is socialized medicine, therefore bureaucratic and inefficient" is ridicululous and wrong : look at the facts! See the WHO ranking : France comes first and read a column in the IHT ("French Lesson").