French Health care system going broke

[VITE1]

France's Health-Care System Is Going Broke - Businessweek

France's Health-Care System Is Going Broke

By Albertina Torsoli

January 03, 2013





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Anita Manfredi got nine massages and 18 mud baths at a luxury spa in November. The French government paid two-thirds of the $1,022 bill. “The treatment has done me a lot of good,” says Manfredi, a French retiree who suffers from arthritis and enjoys a three-week retreat at the southern spa town of Dax every year. “I no longer have flare-ups.”

For decades, France has held up its health-care system as a model to the world. Homeopathic remedies, support tights, and taxi rides to the hospital are among the many costs reimbursed by the health-care branch of France’s social security system, known as l’assurance maladie. Average life expectancy is 81.3 years, longer than in the U.S. Adults are less likely to live with diabetes or die from heart disease, and the rate of infant deaths in 2010, the latest year on record, was almost half that of the U.S., according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

Yet France’s looming recession and a steady increase in chronic diseases including diabetes threaten to change that, says Willy Hodin, who heads Groupe PHR, an umbrella organization for 2,200 French pharmacies. The health system exceeds its budget by billions of euros each year, and in the face of rising costs, taxpayer-funded benefits such as spa treatments, which the French have long justified as preventive care, now look more like expendable luxuries. “Reform is needed fast,” Hodin says. “The most optimistic believe this system can survive another five to six years. The less optimistic don’t think it will last more than three.”

Even as Spain and Greece gut their own costly health-care systems in an effort to control government spending, French President François Hollande is struggling to preserve his country’s enviably generous benefits, which most citizens consider a right. Aware that any attempt to dramatically curtail perks would likely lead to massive protests, Hollande has taken a more modest approach to cost-cutting. France’s health system now requires doctors to reduce the number of drugs they prescribe and to substitute generics for brand-name pharmaceuticals. The government says cuts in the cost of prescription medicines will save €530 million ($702.4 million) in 2013. Patients in other European nations have long used generics, but many French view no-name drugs with suspicion and demand the real thing. In Germany, as much as 96 percent of prescriptions are filled with generics. In June 2011 the substitution rate in France was 71 percent, according to the government. The goal is 85 percent.

Under new rules, patients can no longer refuse a generic offered by pharmacists unless they’re willing to pay upfront for the pricier alternative. And pharmacists who sell too many branded drugs face trouble. Jean-Christophe Girardeaux and his mother, Jacqueline, who co-own a pharmacy in Airvault, a town of about 3,000 in western France, lost their right to offer customers immediate reimbursement for one month in September after they failed to sell enough generics. The younger Girardeaux calls the government’s push for generics “crazy,” a view many French share. In a December opinion poll published by Groupe PHR, 46 percent of those surveyed said the increased pressure to use generic drugs was a violation of their freedom.

The government is also putting the squeeze on free taxi rides for patients in rural areas, who often live far from hospitals. Jonathan Guersoni, a cabbie in the Burgundy region, says 95 percent of his business comes from shuttling patients to and from the doctor in his Mercedes-Benz (DAI:GR). He carries one customer three times a week for dialysis at a hospital 31 miles away, billing the government at a discounted rate, about 7 percent less than what he charges paying customers. Guersoni, who goes by the nickname Joe Le Taxi, fears health authorities will soon demand a discount of more than twice as much. “I am really worried,” he says. “I may have to get a cheaper car.”

The tinkering appears to have succeeded in bringing down costs, though it’s unclear by how much. The government projects the health-care system’s 2013 shortfall will be about €5.1 billion, down from €11.6 billion in 2010. Yet that forecast may be optimistic, since it’s based on the assumption that the economy will grow 0.8 percent—double the European Commission’s estimate. France’s system “is simply unaffordable, unsustainable, and the manner in which it’s financed is a huge burden on the economy,” says Nicholas Spiro, managing director of Spiro Sovereign Strategy in London. “The French are not being realistic.”


The bottom line: The French government says the health system will fall €5.1 billion short in 2013, meaning it may be forced to cut cherished benefits.

Imagine that. Free HC actually costs money

[Loco Vette]

But but but but everything is wonderful in Europe, right? I keep getting told so!

[6spdC6]

Well what you expect from the Frenchies they fight with their feet and phuck with their face.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Loco Vette

But but but but everything is wonderful in Europe, right? I keep getting told so!

And Germany is rationing
Priority-setting, rationing and cost-... [Med Health Care Philos. 2013] - PubMed - NCBI

I heard about it from a friend. His Employee was out twice this year due to his tonsils being infected. He can't get them out until he hits four infections per year.

And the UK has been rationing for some time.

BBC News - Why the NHS has to ration care

The Same Friends Father was due to go in for cancer surgery last week. They found it spread a little more than expected so its now a lower probability he will live after the operation so he gets no operation He has less than 6 months to live.

Welcome to our future. Now that we have Obamacare, and soon Single payer, EVERYONE except those in government and the very rich will get rationed HC.

Yet the Deadbeats, Drunks, Druggies and Dropouts now get to live longer because they now have better HC and we get to pay for them longer. Makes a lot of sense. If you are complete idiot.

[mrvette]

Love to see the stats as to just WHO was hurting the system worse....

Mudslimes or the General pop....on a % basis.....

bet I know the answer....

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by Gilligan

Love to see the stats as to just WHO was hurting the system worse....

Mudslimes or the General pop....on a % basis.....

bet I know the answer....

They are probably a factor. The root cause problem is that those who are not the most productive get the same care as the most productive to be "Fair" when you do that you reduce productive people and produce more non or low productive people.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by VITE1

They are probably a factor. The root cause problem is that those who are not the most productive get the same care as the most productive to be "Fair" when you do that you reduce productive people and produce more non or low productive people.

That sounds EXACTLY like Medicare. Yay, socialism!

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

That sounds EXACTLY like Medicare. Yay, socialism!

Thats correct. And Medicaid. Don't you find it silly when Liberals demand that Darwinism be taught in schools yet refuse to allow it in real life?

[69camfrk]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

That sounds EXACTLY like Medicare. Yay, socialism!

Socialism....we are already there.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by VITE1

Thats correct. And Medicaid. Don't you find it silly when Liberals demand that Darwinism be taught in schools yet refuse to allow it in real life?

I find it even more confusing why I was taught that communism was evil when I was a kid, and why totalitarianism was bad, when I was a kid. 1984 and Brave New World were both required reading back then. I assumed it was meant to be a cautionary tale, not a road map.

Why did we even bother fighting the communists in Vietnam and Korea? Why bother with a Cold War? With a few differences, we're all on the same socialist team, and most Americans don't really see a problem, and they aren't willing to vote for a change.

[Cybercowboy]

Socialism doesn't work, never will work, and always ends up in a tyranny. Every. Single. Time. But this time will be different, right?

[DJ_Critterus]

Liberals: Taking failed ideas and making them worse here in the US.

[VITE1]

Originally Posted by bill_daniels

I find it even more confusing why I was taught that communism was evil when I was a kid, and why totalitarianism was bad, when I was a kid. 1984 and Brave New World were both required reading back then. I assumed it was meant to be a cautionary tale, not a road map.

Why did we even bother fighting the communists in Vietnam and Korea? Why bother with a Cold War? With a few differences, we're all on the same socialist team, and most Americans don't really see a problem, and they aren't willing to vote for a change.

Because during the Vietnam war one of the ways NOT to get drafted was to become a teacher. So all the cowards and liberal became teachers and see what has happened to education.

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by VITE1

Because during the Vietnam war one of the ways NOT to get drafted was to become a teacher. So all the cowards and liberal became teachers and see what has happened to education.

U SURE?? here I thought I was aware, but I maybe forgot THAT one.....shit....

but given my early 60's teachers/profs in colledge (that allegedly a college)

I can't doubt it.....



I clicked to post, but NOW I know why we fought the VN war, to get all the commie bastards into edjemakshum to poison the minds of the kids, slick move, bastards.....kill every damn commie on site, miss NONE!!!!!!

[Cybercowboy]

Here's what George Bernard Shaw, one of the founders of the Fabian Socialists (Obama is a Fabian Socialist BTW) said.

“Under Socialism, you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not the character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live, you would have to live well.”

Enjoy.

Not only is Obama a Fabian Socialist, he's also an adherent of Black Liberation Theology (as taught to him for 20 years by Rev. Wright) and also Critical Race Theory. These doctrines have, at their core, Fabian Socialism. This isn't tin foil hat stuff. This is just what it is. Our president is a Fabian Socialist and it's obvious to anyone who cares to think with a clear mind.

It may help you understand where certain members who post here come from also.

[DJ_Critterus]

Originally Posted by Cybercowboy

It may help you understand where certain members who post here come from also.

I thought they were coming straight out of their asses which were blocked with their heads.