stateofbeasley
Senior member
NPR - T.R. Reid: Looking Overseas For 'Healing Of America'
I don't think Americans really understand how health care works in other countries. A common thing I hear from people who are not really tuned in to the current debate is "I don't want us to be socialist like France", which is actually a false characterization of the French system.
In a nutshell:
There are two basic questions: Who administers payment for health care, and who delivers the actual care itself.
In the UK, the British Government administers insurance and delivery of health care through the NHS. Basically all of health care is run by the government. This is probably most accurately described by the 'socialist' label thrown around.
In France, Germany, many other European countries, and Japan, insurance companies are almost all private AND non-profit. The laws there make insurance non-profit in order to eliminate the conflict of interest that arises when an insurance company has to chose between paying for a patient's care and making profits for shareholders. The insurance companies must accept everyone regardless of prior conditions.
Interestingly, insurance companies use the health coverage under this system as a carrot to get people to sign up for kinds of insurance they provide for profit, like auto and home insurance. They hope that if their health plan attracts people, they can also get those people to buy policies for other things.
Canada is a hybrid system. Government administers insurance, and private parties run the doctor's offices and hospitals.
In many poor nations, people pay cash for their own care. There's no insurance and no government involvement.
The US system is a mess that runs all these types of insurance systems in parallel. People in the VA system and Indian Tribe System are in an NHS-like program. Medicare is essentially the Canadian system. Employer based healthcare is like France, at least while you are employed.
The vast magnitude of systems, payment agreements, and paperwork causes administrative overhead in the US to skyrocket.
T.R. Reid also discusses the pros and cons of each type of system. It's well worth listening to.
I don't think Americans really understand how health care works in other countries. A common thing I hear from people who are not really tuned in to the current debate is "I don't want us to be socialist like France", which is actually a false characterization of the French system.
In a nutshell:
There are two basic questions: Who administers payment for health care, and who delivers the actual care itself.
In the UK, the British Government administers insurance and delivery of health care through the NHS. Basically all of health care is run by the government. This is probably most accurately described by the 'socialist' label thrown around.
In France, Germany, many other European countries, and Japan, insurance companies are almost all private AND non-profit. The laws there make insurance non-profit in order to eliminate the conflict of interest that arises when an insurance company has to chose between paying for a patient's care and making profits for shareholders. The insurance companies must accept everyone regardless of prior conditions.
Interestingly, insurance companies use the health coverage under this system as a carrot to get people to sign up for kinds of insurance they provide for profit, like auto and home insurance. They hope that if their health plan attracts people, they can also get those people to buy policies for other things.
Canada is a hybrid system. Government administers insurance, and private parties run the doctor's offices and hospitals.
In many poor nations, people pay cash for their own care. There's no insurance and no government involvement.
The US system is a mess that runs all these types of insurance systems in parallel. People in the VA system and Indian Tribe System are in an NHS-like program. Medicare is essentially the Canadian system. Employer based healthcare is like France, at least while you are employed.
The vast magnitude of systems, payment agreements, and paperwork causes administrative overhead in the US to skyrocket.
T.R. Reid also discusses the pros and cons of each type of system. It's well worth listening to.
