Sante

The French health system is ranked number one in the world by the World Health Organisation. It provides universal coverage, gives patients choice of primary care providers and specialists, incorporates public and private insurers and has high life expectancy results. Their cancer treatment is far more successful than ours, mainly because it takes less time to see a doctor and they have more diagnostic equipment per capita than we do. The cost of the system is 10% of GDP which is marginally above ours and compares with 14% in the USA. The USA is examining the model but finds it hard to swallow because of the large pay differential between the doctors in the respective countries: doctors in France earn around a third of those in the USA. This is partly because their medical school tuition is free so they don't have huge student debts to repay but also because the level of litigation in US culture is now so high that doctors have to be able to pay large legal fees in the event of their being sued.