The French are striking again... But they do have socialized health care

No, I didn't have some misinformation minister feeding me facts from a single source. I have actually looked at your health care system and read a lot of different things about your country (including about your taxation rates--you have a graduated system, so not everyone pays the same amount. But the average rate between federal and provincial taxes is just below 50 percent, which means on average, people give more to the government than they spend on food, shelter and clothing).

That just avoids the questions I asked, of course. But fair enough. Don't answer the questions about whether you have figured out how to pay for universal health care, and address whether or not you racked up huge amounts of debt creating an unrealistic system that you can no longer sustain, even if this is pretty much what those who deal with policy in your country are dealing with right now. I asked the questions sincerely and thought they are legitimate, but it's your prerogative to avoid what is central to evaluating if you have created something beneficial and sustainable or if you have created a mess with future economic consequences.

By the way, your higher life expectancy rate has less to do with our relative health care systems than the fact that you have less violent crime than we do. One murdered 17-year-old has a much greater effect on life expectancy rates than people intuitively realize, and unfortunately, we have way more of those than other industrialized countries, which brings our life expectancy rate down. But that isn't a health care issue. I do congratulate you, though, on controlling violent crime way better than we do. We have a problem with that, too, in this country. It's actually something where we could learn a lot from others, without having to create false, unsustainable parameters.

 

Their taxes aren't covering everything if their system has been operating at a debt that it can no longer sustain... which is why they have cut back on services and why there is more dissatisfaction than when they were providing services they really couldn't pay for. I can max out a credit card for a short time and live well. It's what happens when I reach my credit limit that matters.

Call bullshit all you want. It's a fact. I don't even know where to start. So here is the first page that came up on Google (which you can do as easily as I can):

http://chealth.canoe.ca/channel_section_details.asp?text_id=2994&channel_id=7&relation_id=3621

If you don't like that page as a source, there were 1.68 million other things to click on that quantify the doctor shortage up there and the millions of people (this link estimates it at 4 million; I have seen 5 million) left without a family practitioner because of what government policy has created.

I know you trust the NY Times as a source. This story that came up on the first Google page is from 2004 and focuses on the local angle. The national situation has worsened since then (as the story predicted), with more need for cutbacks because they can't keep writing checks they can't pay for:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/12/international/americas/12canada.html?ex=1252641600&en=aa05bfaaad33aff9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland

I'm not making shit up to try to make a point, FB. Honest. It's about acknowledging realities, not fighting for something because I want it to be true. I wish they had figured out something magical. It would be wonderful and we could emulate it. They haven't.

They ran massive debt to create an unsustainable system. When they couldn't do that anymore, they cut services -- including limiting the number of health care practitioners and actually creating disincentives to becoming a doctor and staying in Canada. That has created the problems they are seeing now (with a shortage of family doctors), and it still leaves them with the promise of universality they are struggling with and no way to pay for it (more debt is not an option, so they don't know how to live up to the promise now or deal with the debt they have racked up).

This doesn't even address the shortage of specialists, which is even worse. If you have training in a specialty, you can earn way more by leaving the country and practicing elsewhere, which is exactly what has happened. It's not that hard to find objective information confirming what I am pointing out, whether it is in policy journals, data from surveys, government acknowledgment of the problems or popular press accounts.

EDIT: Fixed the link.

 

The American system leaves millions of people out in the cold. It sucks and it has some horrible inefficiencies we have created built into it. Millions of people are stressed because they get sick and can't afford their treatments or medications. I have never chanted "rah rah U.S." about this. It sucks.

My central point remains. Universality--whether it is in France, Canada or the U.S.--is an impossible dream. When the cost of health care is approaching 20 percent of our GDP--more than we spend on food--you better give a whole lot of thought to how you are going to pay for a universal system when you are out there making the promises. I go overboard on here, but I guess I have a hair-trigger response to the "The French have figured it out" or "the Canadians have figured it out" rhetoric from people who refuse to look underneath the hood. The French have ruined their economy and caused double-digit unemployment with the debt they have run up. The Canadians aren't that stupid. They pretended for a while, but before ruining their economy, they began to put on the brakes because their debt was unsustainable, and they decided they have to make choices. And with those choices, their situation starts to look a whole lot less universal and a whole lot more like ours--and will continue to with each year they have to make even harder choices. Health care is an expensive commodity that is getting more expensive... in the U.S. ... and in Canada. It's just reality.

 

Show me how your math adds up and I'll buy into your plan. The countries I have been picking at have not just taxed the hell out of their people. They have run up huge debts to create unrealistic worlds. 15 percent in taxes isn't going to pay for a universal system in the U.S. (it won't even make a dent), and even if it could, you are then deciding to have something more inefficient than what we currently have try to allocate something without any incentive to do it well. It's a choice. But not the one I'd make. I believe you are asking for one of two things: 1) an economic mess as politicians who have made ridiculous promises create a debt crisis to try to deliver them, with that debt having far-reaching consequences on our economy (stagnates growth and creates unemployment, a la France), or 2) a nationalized system that is even more inefficient, and that ultimately leaves people worse off, than the crappy set of choices we are currently dealing with. Perhaps rather than haves and have nots, we'll end up with a system of rationing, in which everyone suffers the same amount, rather than some people enjoying full benefits and some people enjoying none. And I think that could be considered preferable. But having seen how government bureaucracies run such programs, and the messes they have created that then have to be fixed at great expense, I think you're asking for trouble. It's how you end up with some government agency creating policy that leaves you with doctor shortages and not enough cat scan machines in the country.

No need to debate it. I know people are going to disagree. Agree to disagree. At least it's being discussed in more rational terms.