90 million Americans without health insurance in 2006-7

90 million Americans without health insurance in 2006-7
by Chris in Paris · 9/22/2007 02:42:00 AM ET

Having used the health care system both in France (WHO ranked #1 in the world) and the US (WHO #37) I know I would never want to go back to the high cost and miserable process in the US. The system in France is not perfect but for the bulk of the population it is easy to use and costs are less than in the US, for medical visits, out of pocket expenses and cost to working families. We have a combination of both national insurance as well as private insurance and between the two most costs are covered. National insurance in France does not mean everything is automatically covered, though costs are much more contained. In France I have more choices for medical care than I did with a lousy HMO in the US and again, my costs both in terms of out of pocket deductibles as well as taxes/monthly payments are considerably less.

So will the French system work in the US? Maybe, maybe not. Each country has different dynamics so there is no "one size fits all" solution. Could the US learn something from the WHO #1 health care system? Learning from success and failure in other countries seems like such a sensible idea and in my mind much could be learned though all too often in the US, we ignore what other countries have done whether it's health care, fighting terrorism, etc. but it would be a valuable lesson to study plans that work and that fail and examine how those successful ideas could be Americanized. As a country, America deserves better.