The Conversation explains France’s national health care system and how it compares to health care in the United States. The French system is especially generous and comprehensive because the government regulates the health care system. The US system is inflationary and limited because it relies on the marketplace with no government regulation of costs.
The US health care marketplace is highly inefficient. Prices are largely out of control because the health care marketplace is inflationary. Competition does not rein in prices.
In France, the government guarantees health insurance to everyone who is legally in the country from birth. In the United States, the government only provides coverage to people over 65 and people with disabilities through Medicare, people with low incomes through Medicaid ,and veterans.
France’s L’Assurance Maladie delivers far better access and quality of care for most people than the US delivers for Americans. For starters, Americans die earlier than people in France, on average, three and a half years earlier. And, we spend twice as much on health care, $14,668 per person in 2024, as compared to $7,259 in France.
Access to care is relatively easy in France. Most people have primary care doctors, who they can see without any out-of-pocket costs. If they use a different health care provider, they pay just a few euros. And, in many cases there is no wait time to see a specialist.
Moreover, in France if you have one of 30 serious long-term conditions, including diabetes, cancer and psychiatric illnesses, the government covers your treatment in full.
In France, cost is rarely a barrier to care. Almost everyone in France also has supplemental coverage, for which their employers or they themselves pay. As a result, on average, the French pay just 7.8 percent of their health care costs. Even dental, vision and hearing are covered.
France spends a lot less on health care than we do as a proportion of their GDP. Seventeen point two percent of our GDP goes to health care, as compared to 11.4 percent in France.
In France, people can use public hospitals and private clinics. The government supports all the university hospitals and controls the private hospitals as well as the public ones. If people visit physicians in private practices, they pay on a fee-for-service basis. But, the government sets the fees in most cases. The charge to see a primary care doctor is about 30 euros.
What’s noteworthy is that the US spends more per person in our public health insurance programs from taxes than the French, $5,264 v. $4,863. But, our health care dollars represent just 43 percent of expenditures per person per year. In France, they represent 79.4 percent per person per year.
Here’s more from Just Care:
- Health insurers in Germany help prevent opioid crisis
- How does Taiwan’s health care system work?
- How conservative leadership put Britain’s national health service on life support
- Medicare for All reemerges as the smartest way to guarantee Americans affordable health care
- Medicare for those who choose it, a first step to guaranteed affordable health care for all
