Comparative European Politics
The French Health Care System
Reading ŇFrance: The Vital Card,Ó in TR ReidŐs The
Healing of America
Describe the
French System
How are people insured?
By whom?
Who pays? How?
Bismarkian or Beveridge Model??
Centralized,
STATIST system
Symbolized in the
carte vital
Virtues of the
card?
No walls of
files, legions of medical office employees doing billing
VERY efficient
All your records
come up with the doctor pulls you up in the system
Pros? Cons of this?
Government sets
prices
POSTED in every
doctorŐs office!!
BUT the doctors
are not state employees, they are self-employed
AND the
government does not provide the insurance; people buy it through their employer
Their Caisse d'Assurance Maladie
This makes it
more of a Bismarkian model, like Germany, US
Unlike US,
however, insurance companies canŐt make profit
Patient pays fee
at point of service
Reimbursed for
most later
Doctor paid
within three days
Doctors earn a
lot less than in the US
Results:
France ranks
first in the world for its overall system – quality and fairness
Has more doctors
than the US
Better
performance on many indicators
e.g. mortality
amenable health care (ranks 1st) healthy life expectancy, infant
mortality
Discussion
Questions:
What does the
design of the French healthcare system reveal about the political culture of
France in the 20th and 21st centuries? That is, what values are reflected in its healthcare
system?
Does this
represent a shift in French political values compared to earlier
centuries? If not, why not? If so, what caused this shift in
values?