Reader Responses

Health care is one of the principle issues that voters are concerned about and the subject of considerable discussion everywhere including in the pages of the Tyler Paper.

I have read with interest statements like that in a recent letter to the editor that "America has the best health care system in the world" and decrying the long waits for care, inadequacy of facilities, and enormous expense of what are usually described by East Texans as "socialized medicine."

All these facts make a convincing case against government sponsored health care except for the small problem that they are not true.

To begin with America does not have the best health care system in the world. In fact, the latest ranking by the World Health Organization places us 37th; beneath Costa Rica and right above Slovenia.

At No. 1 is France, a country where I have spent considerable time. Let me give you some facts that will prove eye opening.

In France, if you are taken ill in the middle of the night you can pick up the phone, call a central number and, no matter the hour, a doctor will make a housecall. The cost for this service is 31 euros. Even at the calamitous exchange rate brought about by the collapse of the dollar this is less than $50. If you are a French citizen you mail your receipt for this service in and you will be compensated for about 90 percent of the cost.

A housecall during the day costs a bit less and, in fact, almost one third of all medical consultations between doctor and patient in France are made at the patient's home.

By the way, you are not assigned a doctor under the French system. You pick whichever health care provider you wish.

Costs for tests and consults with specialists are equally inexpensive even before reimbursement from the government mandated Health Insurance system.

Nor is there anything shoddy or substandard about this care. There are no waits for hospital beds or procedures. The fact is that there are 8.5 hospital beds per 1,000 population in France, about twice those available in the USA. Perhaps this explains why patients are not given the bum's rush as so often happens here. Maternity stays, for example, are usually eight full days in France.

Indeed, the French are the healthiest people in the world despite a diet that seems to be composed of equal parts red meat, butter and wine and a high percentage of smokers in the population.

But surely this system is ruinously expensive?

Again, the fact is that France spends 9.5 percent of its gross domestic product to get the finest health care in the world. The United States spends 13.5 percent to get the 37th best. It is, in fact, the American system which is ruinously expensive; the most expensive in the world.

It is impossible to make correct decisions about public issues without knowledge of the facts. It is time for Americans to abandon their jingoistic and ill informed self-congratulation about being "No. 1" and realize that in far too many areas, including health care, we are far from it.