Compare & Contrast: Healthcare

For those of you who are interested in the state of healthcare in the US - which should be all of you - Ezra is doing what promises to be a fabulous series of posts highlighting how some other developed countries do healthcare. Today's country: France. An excerpt:

The health care system is mainly under state control. The state plans out hospitals, the allocation of specialized equipment, etc. Some of this is done at the regional level, a trend which seems to be increasing. The hospitals offer about 8.4 beds per 1,000 people (America, btw, offers 3.6. Ouch.) The public sector provides 65% of the beds, private hospitals -- which operate on a fee-for-service basis -- make up the rest, and primarily concentrate on surgeries. French citizens choose which one to go to and get the same reimbursement at either. How's that for choice? Not good enough? The French also get to choose their physicians, their physicians get to choose where they practice, and there's patient-client confidentiality.

There's more, including comparison statistics and links to references. Handy information to have the next time you're trying to convince grandma that "socialized medicine" does not equal "harbinger of the apocalypse."