The Healthcare System of France 

People say that if Breaking Bad took place in France Walter White would have handed his carte vitale and end of story.

I grew up in France in a middle class family, only my dad worked and my mom was taking care my 3 siblings and me at home. They never had to worry about healthcare expenses. I have now been living in the US for the last 8 years and I just can't understand how Americans can deal with such a shitty and expensive healthcare system. In France, we would have been protesting in streets (it's a national sport) long ago to demand for a better healthcare system...

Please excuse my english as I am french; I never comment RU-vid Videos but I must say I find this explanation of my country's healthcare system and the comments made by people from different countries very interesting, especially comments from some american citizens. I am really happy with my healthcare system and though I know it's very costly I'd rather sacrifice everything else in order to keep it as it is. I know that if I get sick, i will be taken care of, I'll get surgery or expensive new drug if needed, whatever money I make, whatever job I have or not. I can choose a doctor or a hospital I like, they can charge me what they want, I'll get reimbursed based on the regular prices and my extra insurance (provided by my company) will take care of the rest. I never feel like I am being forced into a system. I never feel like it is institutionnalized charity. What I feel when I benefit from it is the meaning of the third word of our national moto : Fraternity. I am happy to collectively pay taxes that will help my fellow citizens and inhabitants of France because together we are a nation and we must help each other as such. I know it is a cultural difference, but I cannot stand it when I read someone who wrote "I don't want to pay for anyone else but me; poor people who cannot afford healthcare are responsible for their own lack of fortune (they lazy people); too bad for unlucky people but let them rely on charity". Like it is people fault that they got sick, or couldn't afford to a monstrously expensive university to get a job that can cover their health expenses. I can't believe everything is up to the individuals. I think we are molded by the cultural and social background we come from and we cannot do anything about that and it is unfair to blame people for not winning the birth lottery. Of course people are not equal and will never be. But I think that in a country, as a nation, as a state it is my citizen duty to support a system, how imperfect it might be, that help people at least be freed from the worst injustice of all, so that they can keep their dignity as human being. I would add that I am absolutely not shocked by anything state-run like many americans are; for a long time state lead industrial ventures in France were very succesful and prestigious and it still rings on in nowaday society (like the very cheap prices for excellent broadband and high-speed internet coverage). Our country was built around the idea that "the people is the state, the state is the people". It is a very long comment I know, but sometimes it has to get out! :-)

Health care in France may be relatively expensive, but you get what you pay for, unless you're American and you just pay more thinking it's better.

Even if the french system is expensive - if the outcome is that good we should adapt it everywhere.

Maaaan, I had no idea the French healthcare system is THIS good.

French med student here, making 250 euros a month (i know...). Last year i had to undergo major surgery. On week in a private hospital, an MRI, a day in surgery and all other expenses : 2,500 euros. (When i see American prices i seriously don't understand) 2,200 were covered by Social Security, 200 euros by my individual insurance. I had to pay 100 euros (less than 150$). Best health care system ever !

Thanks for exposing the fact that we in the U.S. have one of the worst and most expensive health care systems in the world. I would welcome the French solution here - or even the British or Canadian systems. The way we handle health care in the U.S. is ludicrous.

As a French person I can say that I trully appreciate that anyone (even foreigners) can walk in an hospital and be taking care of regardless of their financial or social situation. No one will ask you if you can afford a test or a procedure before helping you. Because if you can't afford something the government will help you pay. Most hospitals will also make payments plans to help if it's necesarry. We have amazing benefits. Also as a woman I can get the pill nearly for free for my entire life (I understand daily contraception is expensive in certain countries). We are truly bless on this topic. But don't get me wrong we're French so we still find ways to complain about it of course.

My French teacher had an accident while in France. Saw a specialist, got x rays and pain meds, etc. Hell they even offered to fix it that day. He was so worried about the cost especially as a foreigner but it cost him nothing literally. Now that's quality.

France's healthcare system sounds insane in a good way. Kudos the the French.

The French system sounds to me more or less like what health care should be like. Didn't know that France has their health care ducks in order to this extent.

I couldn't hear anything beyond FREE MEDSCHOOL are you freaking kidding me....

I'm Dutch, and when I saw this video, I thought: 'Wow, that's got to be really expensive, if you pay so little as a patient. We have to pay more, but it saves the government money.' Then I saw we spend even more. Where does all that money go?

US should learn from French system.The best hands down!

As an actual Frenchman I can vouch for how awesome the system here is. I pay 3 euros to go see my doctor (can pick whoever I want) and because I'm a student all my prescriptions are free! If you don't have a "mutuél" (the plans that cover the 15% of drug costs la sécurité sociale doesn't, the costs are around 1-2 euros a box. The one downside of the system is that the French consume a LOT of medications. You can get pure codeine and ethlymorphine OTC and we consume the most SSRI and Benzo's in the world. So that is probably the worst, we actually get too much healthcare and the pharma industry profits :/

The fact is that in France and most countries people just don't understand some US TV shows when they say "they have huge meical bills, they are bankrupt". It just does not exists there (there is not even a comonly used word to define "personnal bankrupcy").

Just a slight moderation of vocabulary: patients in France don't get any cancer treatment "they want". It's the "death panel" who get what they want. The death panel has no hard budget limit, and they can include the patient in a drug testing if it's relevant. They go purely on benefit/risk/patient discussion.

Pretty much from this video we can conclude that France is the bets place to go for health insurance. If someone works, then they have healthcare! Its amazing how countries can find a way to get the job don when it comes to health. Things that we aren't even close to covering in the U.S., they cover in France. One distinction in France is that doctors make far less money but they receive more benefits (medical school for free). This is a trend that other countries will struggle to adopt because they're too money hungry. The best part is that the people of France do not pay that much for their healthcare. Lastly, the fact that cancer patients in this country can get any drug they want is awesome. We're talking even experimental drugs! The French are doing things right in every way possible, other countries seriously need to look into their healthcare system.

The Australian health care system would be awesome to do next. It's a little inefficient, and it doesn't cover specialists, but if you break a bone, get cancer, or need to have a child, you are never going to be out of pocket.

It is funny. I have a French friend here in Georgia, with a pretty good insurance, who preferred to pay for a plane travel to get hospitalized in France even if it was a standard operation to the elbow.

As if I didn't already want to move to France,now I do even more.

I'm rather happy that their system is so thorough, but homeopathy? Really?

My mom has cancer, she goes to different specialists and appointments every other week, a nurse comes to our house to test her blood levels and inject her meds that cost around 1000 euros each every month. All 100% free. I cannot imagine living in the us, i would be terrified to get hurt or sick and be in such debt all because something unfortunate and unplanned happened to me.

France sounds pretty awesome.

In addition to that if French people travel and got hospitalized in other countries, just keep all the receipt and you get the reimbursement!Yes, we love our healthcare system!We treasure and we want to keep it!

Also in France the health insurance system will reimburse you for the days of work lost when sick. This is why the spending is huge compared with other system where this covered by other branches of insurances.

Granted I haven't experienced the French health care system myself, but that sounds fantastic. I'm quite jealous.

lived in France for 7 years. honestly the best healthcare I've ever seen. and sooooo cheap. about double the price of the NHS but 10x better.

God Bless you France!

New Zealand looked pretty good on that Graph. I want to say HOORAY, I am very glad to know that you are continuing this series.

Hey Dr. Carroll, I'm actually starting my pediatric residency in about 2 months and wanted to let you know how awesome these videos are, especially the references under each video! Neil

Sounds like an amazing system. Except of course for covering homeopathy... that's just ridiculous. In the Netherlands you can get voluntary insurance for alternative medicine, but there's no way that the mandatory insurance will cover this. Covering unproven non-experimental treatments (like homeopathy or acupuncture) is not something that should be paid through a socialized system.

They also have a unique mobile hospital program with all the necessary ER equipment in the ambulance. A doctor rides along with the paramedics because they realized most emergencies aren't really emergencies and can be treated on-site. This frees up hospital beds.

Living in The Netherlands, I found this interesting. Keep the series going, it's very informative.

First of all thank you for that video. It's so rare to see an american video praising something french. But what a shock in the comments. Everybody is talking about homeopathy. I'm French and i don't believe in homeopathy (i'm probably too cartesian for that) and I didn't know it was covered but i do my homework and check : homeopathy represent 0.3% of the expenses ... so it's not a big deal if some people like sugar and placebo effect.

So here we have a model to go by. One that works and saves huge amounts of money compared to the US 'system'. So why aren't we adopting? Oh yea... 'reasons'...

A French lady recently told me that while visiting San Francisco she had a tooth pulled out; it cost her $1000. The same procedure in France costs € 36.50.

Your videos are awesome! I really like how you cute all your resources as well. Keep the videos coming.

Ugh I want to live in France

Could you do a video on the Healthcare system of Signapore which, while complex, is very interesting.

Brilliant Video. Sound, fair, and blatantly factual treatment of the way the system works.

There you go again, you and your logical assessment of issues! Merci mille fois.

I'm an American woman and married to a French man, and even though we currently live in the States, I've been thinking about having our ( currently just an idea) child in France. It seems like it would be both cheaper and safer.

That is the system I want for Canada. Wow that's great.

Thanks, that was very interesting! I knew nothing about France's healthcare system before.

I think socialised health care is key, and the key to socialised healthcare is to have adequate numbers of healthcare workers and infrastructure to deal with the inevitable increase in patient visits, and of course compensate the loss in salary for healthcare workers in other ways.

Ahah love my country more than ever

What I've learned from these videos about other nations' health care systems is that it is generally considered a right to be healthy in every other first world capitalist country in the world.

FINALLY!!! Thanks guys! Very informative and makes me wish that The States would have such a system that everyone could benefit from.

France thumb up! Liberté, égalité, fraternité

The more i see these kinds of comparative videos the more I rethink my decision to try to pursue a career in the US. After all Europe is a pretty amazing place

this one time in france i got the black lung. (it's an american pie reference) in any case, i did get sick in france. i had a bacterial lung infection of some sort during christmas - my mother knocked on my door saying merry christmas, i responded by saying that i was coughing blood. we went to the hospital the next day. doctor consultation, bloodwork, chest x-ray, and antibiotics - the whole shabang cost 300 $. 300 american dollars. i was an american student there and ALL of that only cost 300 $. how much would that cost in the US? even better, my parent's insurance actually covered 80-90% of that cost. france my be seeing a rise in xenophobia and fascism, but by golly is there health system veritably emblematic of egalitarianism...and the food. can't forget the food.

Oh man, next week is gonna be craaaazy.

This looks interesting - can't wait to watch!

Can't argue with how much the French spend. Over in the UK we WISH we were spending more on the health care system.

If you do another one of these you should look at one of the Scandinavian health care systems. I really like the one we have here in Sweden.

You didn’t talk about the vital card and it’s benefits. It is only 5% of the cost for administrative fees and all your medical history is stored on it and shared across the country. This makes healthcare also efficient, fast and with less mistakes.

I like this episode. It focuses on informing us of a system that works. It seems the majority of the videos on this channel pose a common belief and explain how it's wrong. It's refreshing to hear about something that's right.

Covering alternative medicine isn't nearly as silly as everyone seems to think. Alternative medicine itself is usually kind of silly, but think about the costs vs the benefits. Placebos can have pretty significant benefits for some people. Provided that they've already received conventional treatment, making people believe that they're feeling well will probably have an effect that's more than worth the cost of some dried plants and water.

Should do Norwegian health care some time. It's super nifty. At least what I've experienced of it.

Hello and thank you for a very informative series - I really enjoy watching your videos! My apologies for a question not related to this specific video. In one of your earlier videos you discussed risk and mentioned in specific that the greatest risk both men and women face is that of heart disease. My question is what is the correlation between cholesterol and heart disease and also is there any evidence to suggest that exercise helps to lower cholesterol levels and if so which kind of exercise. Also what factors impact cholesterol levels (both positively and negatively). Thanks and kind regards Jacque Dreyer

For information: Mister Ambroise Croizat founded the French Social security system (or social safety net) and the retirement system, between 1945 and 1947. he was a French syndicalist and a communist politician. Pour information: Monsieur Ambroise Croizat a fondé la sécurité sociale et le système de retraite français, ceci entre 1945 et 1947. il était un syndicaliste français et un politicien communiste.

Interesting that the French system is actually less socialised than the British. Wouldn't necessarily have expected that.

It's also really notable that in France, the state run ambulance service, the SAMU, dispatches vehicles which are staffed almost entirely with doctors, so if you have an accident, you get trauma-experienced doctors very quickly. There's a LOT of controversy about it, because SAMU docs are pretty badly paid, and a fair few people choose not to use it at all, but SAMU is pretty much excellent in terms of patient care. The only downside I've ever found to the French system is that the culture within the doctor-patient relationship is a little more authoritarian. I offended a doctor once by refusing to allow him to lance a contusion on my forehead (A ridiculous idea), but this attitude isn't unique to France.

Sounds fantastic!

Last time I was in France, I ate some bad oysters or something. I was sick in bed with vomiting and diarrhea. So, I called SOS Médecins. Within an hour, a doctor arrived, examined me, and wrote me 3 prescriptions. I didn't have insurance in France, so I paid the doctor 40 Euros, and the prescriptions cost less than that. The prescriptions relieved my symptoms quickly, and I was back on my feet in 2 or 3 days. All for under $100. In the USA, unless you know a Doctor personally, a family member or neighbor, you're never getting a housecall. You're going to an emergency room. In France, SOS Médecins sends a Doctor to you within an hour anywhere in France.

Do the netherlands as well please?

and we havent adopted this system why?

Thank you, this video was very helpful!

Could you please make a video on the Healthcare system of Costa Rica? many Americans are coming here on Medical Tourism.

"but it's socialism and therefore unamerican" xD yanks are funny

Violence in video games. Hehe. Loving this channel.

I would love to see a video about competition ,that is to say free market forces, in the Health Care Industry. Why it does or does not work, and how it has never succeeded in substantially lowering costs or increasing quality in the U.S.

will you do the healthcare system of spain?

And everyone in my high school is wondering why I am taking French over Spanish.

I am an American living in France. I love their system. I know taxes are insanely high, but hey no one will go bankrupt by getting sick or by going to collage.

YES! My favorite topic is next!

can you do healthcare in sweden? I really wounder what healthcare system they have got

Wow - I really like the French system; will you perhaps go more into depth? Also are you planning on looking at any other healthcare systems (the good, bad and ugly)?

I'm not sure if you've answered this (or alluded to it) before in one of your other videos, but if you could create the ideal American Healthcare system, what would it look like?

Can you do Switzerland? I know it's probably not that different, but I'd be genuinely interested, since I don't always understand it myself

I'm glad this series wasn't just limited to the US and Canada. The French sound like they have a really good system. Some other countries I would like to see explained: Japan, UK, Russia, Australia, a Scandinavian country or two, China, South Korea (since it spends a relatively low percentage of its GDP on healthcare, according to your graph), and a few Middle Eastern countries.

Oh why can't my country have systems like this that would actually make me proud of it? Why does the US lead the developed world as a counterexample?

I'm excited for the next video on video games and violence. I'm a psych major, and we talked about this during lab one time; there is a correlation between aggression and violent video games, but correlation does *not* equal causation. I really hope you stress that fact.

Very informative. Most people in the U.S. receive their health insurance from their employer and they are not interested in having government health insurance until they get older.

Is the quote at the beginning from Michael Moore?

You should do Spain!

Could you guys do a video on the Danish system?

I would love to see the Singapore system reviewed.

Please consider doing the next rundown on the NHS!

As a french I agree and do like the system but I feel like it should be pointed out that there is a growing problem with general doctors being too few because they all chose to work in hospital where the pay is better and much less stressful. It not the end of the world but it is a problem and it is becoming worst.

One of the many reasons I want to live in France.

I'm sure you all are eventually going to do the UK's health system and other health systems from the EU, but I was wondering if an overview of any health systems from some of the nations that make up Latin American could be done some how? Thanks in advance if you guys do it.

Can you do Sweden's healthcare system?

I don't think that equality for everybody would be the right answer, and that's because we're all different. I think that the most important thing is equity, which means to distribute according to one's needs. And at that, France's system kicks asses.

If USA adopted French healthcare system will be better.

I would like to see you cover the UK system at some point, with the state owned, vertically integrated National Health Service (NHS). I think it would be a good example of the benefits and pitfalls of what many people consider a "socialised" healthcare system.

Just a quick reaction to your video. I am a french GP. The securite sociale isn't just for health care. The five funds you are talking about in the beginning are actually the five different "branches de la securite sociale" which are maladie ( healthcare), vieillesse ( pensions) famille (maternity leave and child benefit) travail ( worplace related disability) and autonomie (disability). All and all the budget of the securite sociale exceeds the budget of the state ( and yes, the securite sociale is a fiction of an independent institution but that's just the beginning of a byzantine frech administrative mess ) It was instituted by a communist minister after ww2 and is the result of multiple compromise, hence the almost 40 different mostly job related funds concerning healthcare (and pensions as well) for example the oldest fund of all, the sailor's is actually older than the french revolution and was actually funded by colbert under louis xiv! While it's true that the safety net is very wide, there are still quite a lot of inequality in healthcare in france, and quite a lot of lower middle class peopleare found now to postpone healthcare due to money related issues. The other big problem is the oversight in general of the healthcare system, with massives slashes in hospital capacity and a chronic deficit of medical student related to the needs of the population since the last 40 years, leading to a major problem of access to primary and secondary care.

O.k., I like it! Let's get one here in the U.S.A.!