While our fearless leaders in Washington are doing their best to give us what they call national health care "reform" (despite the protests of the "mobs"), which seeks to lay the foundation to a one-size-fits-all, single payer system that that have in more enlightened European countries like France, the french are trying to be more like us [2].
France claims it long ago achieved much of what today's U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care. But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.
In recent months, France imposed American-style "co-pays" on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses. "A hospital doesn't need to be money-losing to provide good-quality treatment," President Nicolas Sarkozy thundered in a recent speech to doctors.
And service cuts...are prompting complaints from patients, doctors and nurses that care is being rationed. That concern echos worries among some Americans that the U.S. changes could lead to rationing. ...
The french have a bigger problem in that, they know the system is financially unsustainable but, thanks to the a government that has given people the impression that 100% free and full coverage health care is some sort of human right, they can't muster the political support to make necessary changes.
France faces a major obstacle to its reforms: French people consider access to health care a societal right, and any effort to cut coverage can lead to a big fight.
And this is exactly the same type of attitude liberals are trying to nurture in the American people. They know that once people consider it a basic right, it will result in the growth of a "big government" political constituency. Which means more votes for liberal Democrats.
As Ronald Reagan once said, "they bribe the people with their own money".
