BEST, BUT BUNS UP:

French health system gets surgery: Considered the world's best, France's healthcare system could face bankruptcy. (Peter Ford, 5/20/04, CS Monitor)

France offers its citizens the best healthcare in the world, and it isn't only the French who will tell you so. The World Health Organization ranks France at the top of its list.

The trouble is, the country cannot afford it. The French public health insurance scheme is heading for a $15.5 billion deficit this year, threatening to bankrupt the system.

"Our health system has gone mad," Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told a parliamentary commission earlier this month. "Profound reforms are urgent."

But as trade unions rally in defense of free healthcare for all, the topic has become the hottest issue on the government's controversial reformist agenda, threatening further unpopularity as European parliamentary elections approach.

France is not alone in finding it increasingly hard to fund cradle-to-grave welfare systems. Across Europe, aging populations and ever more expensive medical treatments are busting budgets. The German government recently scandalized voters by introducing small charges for doctor visits and medicines.

Europeans' attachment to their public healthcare systems is strong, however, and nobody wants to see privatization.

It's an interesting thing, no one seriously considers France to have the best health care. If you were a wealthy and very ill Frenchman (or Canadian or whoever) you'd come here to get American medical care. So, the measure has to be something about the level of care top to bottom. This too is a dubious proposition--you likely get better in the Cook County emergency room than in your average French clinic, even though you do get an official appointment when you go to the latter. But once you factor in that the National Health systems are unsustainable it becomes truly asinine to classify them as "best."

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 19, 2004 10:57 PM