Let’s Move to France

The clock radio came on as usual this morning, tuned to NPR. I let it play for a while before facing up to the awfulness of getting out of bed. The commentator was waxing lyrical about the French health care system. He talked and talked, and he made France sound like the most civilized and humane place in the world.

Except he failed to mention a single number. Such as the life expectancy and infant mortality rates in France, as compared with other places. Such as the cost of health care. The US is spending 16% of gross national product on health care. This is a shameful amount of money going to drug companies, insurance companies, hospitals and doctors. Hell we only spend 4% of GNP on defense. The medical community is sucking up four times as much money as the old military industrial complex.

The Europeans only spend 8% of GNP on health care, half what we spend. But NPR didn’t mention this fact, and said nothing about any possible restrictions upon expensive treatments this might cause. This reporter was convinced the French have it right and the Americans have it wrong without bothering to explain to us listeners why he felt this way.