I too am a fan of the French system. Note that it is not cheap. It's more expensive than the British system (on average) but I don't know how it compares to the American system when you take into account everyone's contributions.

For a breakdown of these numbers you can go directly to the report, which can be found here. http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf (PDF format document, ~2MB)

You can see the rankings on page 162, which can cause a little head scratching if you haven't read the rest of the document. For example, Canada has no "level" ranked under 20 but their overall rank is 30. This is because a large portion of the grade comes from "level of health" metric which measures something called "Disability Adjusted Life Expectancy" (DALE) which has a description on page 43. So healthy lifestyles directly impact the overall grade, and the breakdown gives a better picture of where the US stands in relation to other industrialized nations.

With Social Security and Medicare, employees and employers each already pay 7.65% in Social Security and Medicare taxes (up to a cap for SS). Self-employed people pay both, so 15.3%. And the return on this "investment" is dismal.

Add health care into the mix and you have employees paying 15.15% in taxes for retirement and healthcare. Self-employed people would pay 30.3% of their income not including federal, state, and local income taxes (and, of course, not including other local taxes such as sales tax and property tax). This might be okay if the retirement and health care benefits were good. But given the way this country has handled Social Security, I am extremely skeptical of the cost-efficiency of socialized health care.

well, our health insurance premiums already cost a straight 20% of my pre-tax income for a lot of runaround and bs anyway...

This Myth was debunked earlier in the thread, in general socialized health care is less bureaucratic then privatized health care - who'd have thought?

It was not debunked. You posted a link from a socialistic website. The analogy holds, do you think that you will get a good return on your investment with Social Security and Medicare upon retirement?

How does the Government propose to add more doctors and nurses to handle the 47 million newly insured citizens?

These questions must be addressed by an organized comprehensive study and not just the cherry picking of articles and statistics. American's on average pay A STILL LOW percentage on the GDP for health care, what is Government health care going to cost?

I agree, and not only that, the link was about Canada. We're talking about the U.S.

If you think the US government is less capable then the Canadian government I'd buy that argument, but it's easy to verify that Americans pay a greater portion of their health care costs on administration.

You avoided my questions. On average, how much will Americans pay for Government controlled health care?

I know the next post will contain statistics related to what the French and Canadians pay but America is not Canada or France. There are a ton of different variables that come into play (pay scale, number of doctors, type of coverage, etc.) that are different from nation to nation.

I think those who support Government controlled health care need to ask themselves and honestly evaluate three questions.
1) Do you think you could do a better job at providing for your health care needs or do you think the Government will do a better job?
2) How much more are you willing to pay in taxes for Government run health care?
3) Will the Government provide a level of coverage that is equal or better than your current coverage?

The rational thinker will KNOW the answers to these questions before jumping on board. The first question has been dealt with briefly with comparisons to Social Security and Medicare. The last two have not been touched by proponents of Government run health care.

I have no doubts the government would do a better job. They have more leverage and expertise to ensure I'm receiving quality care. More so my direct experience with the Canadian and US health care systems has demonstrated superior care in Canada.



As much as it takes. I'd much rather pay the taxes knowing that I'm spending less on paper pushing and more directly on the quality of care then paying insurance knowing that I'm getting nailed by a middle man every time I make a payment.



Yes, they will easily be able to match the quality of care at lower cost.



I'm not familiar with either of these programs, since I've had no experience with them. I won't pretend that government run agencies don't have problems of their own because they do, however this is one of the rare areas where a free market does not serve the best interests of the public as effectively as a socialized system. The same is true for eduction, which I think we all know has it's own challenges as well. Please understand that by advocating socialized health care I have no illusions about some sort of Utopian system, I simply see a clear failure of the free market system and a competing system that has demonstrated clear superiority for decades.

Cleverbeans, you are not being intellectually honest in your reponses.

You stated that you will pay as much as it takes in order to receive Government health care but that is not a specific number. I am not sure what you pay for health care coverage now but lets say that its $5,000/year; would you be willing to pay $8,000/year for Government run health care? The rational question to such an analogy should be; why should I pay $3,000 more for health coverage? Of course, I am assuming that Government coverage costs more but it may cost less. You would be taken more seriously if you were to state, "Here is what I pay now," and "Here is what I will pay for ObamaCare or HillaryCare," and "Here is why I am willing to pay for ObamaCare and Hillary Care."

I also noticed that in the same comment that you assumed that Government run health care will produce quality coverage with less paper work. I would ask you to contact a local hospital billing office and pose the question, "What agency is more difficult to deal with, the Government or private insurance?" The person will probably say that both stink but if you press them they will lean toward the Government. My wife's mental health facility has ceased from accepting new patients with Government insurance because they cannot deal with the overhead of fighting for the meager money that the Government is willing to pay. Do you know that doctors and medical offices will still be free to decline coverage to Government insured patients even if the US has a universal government run health care system?

The answer to number three is also an assumption with no statistics or claims backing it. Is it fair for me to assume that outside of a standard checkup that you hardly visit the doctor?

Finally, we do not have a free enterprise health care system as sixty percent of our nations health care is already subsidized by the Government. Therefore, it is not accurate to look at our current system and assume that a socialized system clearly beats a "free market" system.

I wish I only paid $5000/year for health insurance. To compare directly, I paid more last year for health care in the US then I did during the 28 years I lived in Canada combined.



I agree, why are Americans paying 15% of GDP on health care for the same quality of care they're getting in Canada for 9% of GDP? If you'd like statistics on the quality of care, I'd refer you to the comparisons made by the World Health Organization in their 2000 report which is the most comprehensive. The link can be found above in this thread.



This is irrelevant, if it costs less and the individual benefits then it's a no brainer. Personally my experience has been that dealing with the government has never been as problematic as dealing with my insurance company when it comes to health coverage. Of course, I'm comparing the Canadian government for health care to the US private insurers, my only experience with the US government was with the Department of Homeland Security for my immigration and I'm not confident it can be reasonable compared.



I have no idea what makes you think that would be the case. In Canada it's illegal to refuse treatment for any reason. Just to clarify, I am NOT supporting universal health insurance, I'm supporting a socialized health care system. You seem to be under the impression that I'd support one of the health care solutions proposed by Hillary or Obama which is NOT the case, I think both of those systems will prove in inadequate since they rely on private insurance and private health care facilities.



I again refer you to the fact that Canada spends 9% of GDP to the USA's 15% and the WHO's report on the quality of care.



No this is certainly not the case, I would encourage you to scrutinize all the assumptions you make.



It's certainly close enough to make the comparison since it is one of the most privatized systems in the world, and many of the benefits gained by socializing health care, such as collective bargaining, and a universal claims system are negated.

We're effectively paying taxes now, their just called health insurance premiums. I'd glady pay an extra thousand or so in taxes for universal coverage. It would be cheaper than most premiums.

Agree, lawsuits are out of control.

We wouldn't need to subsidize pharm companies R&D. Just get them to stop advertising all their crap. Let the doctors make the decisions. They spend more on advertising than R&D anyway.

We Americans need to get over ourselves. Our consumption, debts and holier than thou attitude will be the death of us.

I paid roughly $5,000 total for my family's medical, dental and prescription needs. Also, the figure includes paying 100% out of pocket for insurance, so you are going to find it rather difficult for me to buy into Government health care.

Also, you are not going to get away with the idea that you paid less for health care for a combined twenty-eight years in Canada. The truth is you don't have a clue as to what you individually paid for health care in Canada because their health care coverage is embedded into the tax code. I understand that Canada health care does not pay for dental and prescription coverage and thus you would pay less for such coverage as opposed to your entire health care coverage here.



Two reasons as to why the cost of health in American has soared compared to Canada or France. First, Canada and France does not have to deal with the massive immigration problems that the US has. Twelve million illegal immigrants paying nothing for coverage but yet still receiving coverage puts a huge burden on the rest of the payers. Second, the health of Americans are of lesser quality than the Canadians thus need greater amounts of care which costs more. Do you propose Government mandated diets for the obese in order to achieve the 9% canadian GDP rate?



The idea is not irrelevant. Doctors and hospitals have already determined that they are going to make certain dollar amounts in profit. Doctors, nurses, medical technicians, and hospital administrators are some of the brightest American citizens. What makes you think that practices won't close if doctors can achieve greater wealth in another field? Do you propose the Government force doctors to keep their practices open?

Also, Hospitals currently are not allowed to turn away patients but doctors who practice privately can and do turn away patients. Are they going to be forced to accept patients with Government health care? You see this issue is not as cut and dry as you make it seem.



I gave a rational explanation as to why American health care coverage costs more for the US than Canada. Also, I try not to make assumption and thus why I proposed the assumption in the form of a question.



Hardly, the Government is firmly entrenched in the health care and private insurance business. Also, I was off on the percentage of health care in American subsidized by the US Government is 45% and not 60%.

Social security should be converted over to the Thrift Savings Plan that federal employees (and military) are eligible for. You'd have to figure out some sort of employee matching and minimum contribution level. Fees are very low. I'm not a fan of private accounts run by for-profit investment firms. Their fees already eat into my mutal fund returns.

Anyway, I'm not sure why people think that social security is poorly managed. It's vastly underfunded and yes the return is not very good, but it's not designed as an investment, it's supposed to provide a minimum level of living (and disability/aid to surviving dependents). The baby boomers are breaking the bank.

As for medical taxes vs. premiums, what's the difference? The costs would be similar. We pay taxes for universal fire/police protection, why not medical? And don't get me started on why dental and sometimes eye care are seperate insurance. Even the military has to pay a monthly premium for family dental care + co-pays.