The health care system under French national health insurance: Lessons for health reform in the United States

V.G. Rodwin

American Journal of Public Health, 2003, vol. 93, issue 1, 31-37

Abstract: The French health system combines universal coverage with a public-private mix of hospital and ambulatory care and a higher volume of service provision than in the United States. Although the system is far from perfect, its indicators of health status and consumer satisfaction are high; its expenditures, as a share of gross domestic product, are far lower than in the United States; and patients have an extraordinary degree of choice among providers. Lessons for the United States include the importance of government's role in providing a statutory framework for universal health insurance; recognition that piecemeal reform can broaden a partial program (like Medicare) to cover, eventually, the entire population; and understanding that universal coverage can be achieved without excluding private insurers from the supplementary insurance market.

Date: 2003
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:2003:93:1:31-37_3

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