QandO

September 15, 2004

Well here's a surprise
Posted by McQ

First we had Canada reporting huge deficits in its health care system and now we have France in the same boat:

France's ailing health insurance system for salaried workers showed a all-time record deficit last year of EUR 11.9 billion (USD 14.6 billion), an official government report revealed Wednesday.

The government accounting office, one of two bodies that monitors the social security budget, attributed the skyrocketing deficit to "state decisions" combined with a general increase in the public demand for health care services.

When its free or of low cost people demand more. When people have to pay the actual cost of something they have a tendency to use only what they need.

"The deficit in the insurance branch, which nearly doubled from 2002 (EUR 6.1 billion) to 2003 (EUR 11.9 billion) is unprecedented," said the annual report by the Cour des Comptes, due to be officially released on Thursday.

Salaried workers account for more than 80 percent of insurance payments in France.

The global social security deficit, including the budgets for family, health, pensions and work-related accidents, stood at EUR 11.5 billion for 2003, more than triple the EUR 3.4 billion recorded the previous year.

Couple this with France's stagnant economy and double digit unemployment and you can imagine the natives are not happy.

Although France's health care system was once hailed as one of the world's best, it is now battling both the massive deficit and a poor public image after last year's deadly heat wave that claimed 15,000 lives.

I'd also bet its trying to figure out how its going to ration its health care now that its running huge deficits.

In July, both houses of the French parliament approved the centre-right government's plan to overhaul the health insurance system, which includes a raft of cost-cutting measures to check the spiralling deficit.

The plan asks patients to pay EUR 1 per medical consultation, encourages the use of generic drugs and cracks down on sick leave abuse.

It calls for the use of computerized records as a way to trace a patient's medical history and pinpoint possible abuses such as over-prescription of drugs.

Ah, sounds like Kerry's plan ... fix the bureaucracy, generic drugs (Canadian drugs in Kerry's case) an abuses such as over-prescription (redundant tests in Kerry's case).

And of course, its a band-aid. Single-payer systems which ignore market forces are doomed to be buried by them (because they can't control the rest of the markets which impact health care).

When he presented the plan in May, French Health Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said the government hoped the initiative would generate EUR 15 billion to EUR 16 billion in annual savings.

Heh ... yup. They've been so successful in reforming bureaucracy and government in France in the recent past that I can't wait to see how quickly these "initiatives" generate the savings they 'expect'.

[/sarcasm]

This, by the way, is the left's dream for your future health care as well.

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