Vive Le French Care?

http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=336178343967257

France's system isn't that cheap and is financed by high taxes on labor that have heavy economic consequences.

This raises the cost of labor to prohibitive levels and puts a brake on economic growth. This helps explain why French unemployment hovers around 10%.

French taxpayers fund a state health insurer, Assurance Maladie. Assurance Maladie has run in the red since 1989, and this year's shortfall is expected to be 9.4 billion euros ($13.5 billion) and 15 billion euros in 2010, about 10% of its budget.

Official World Health Organization statistics show the U.S. lagging behind France in infant mortality rates — 6.7 per 1,000 live births vs. 3.8 for France. Halderman notes that in the U.S., any infant born that shows any sign of life for any length of time is considered a live birth. In France — in fact, in most of the European Union — any baby born before 26 weeks' gestation is not considered alive and therefore doesn't "count" in reported infant mortality rates.

In France, the supply of doctors is so limited that during an August 2003 heat wave — when many doctors were on vacation and hospitals were stretched beyond capacity — 15,000 elderly citizens died."