>http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0309-03.htm
>Published on Friday, March 9, 2001 in the International Herald Tribune
>A Conservative Convert To Socialized Medicine
>by David Burgess
>
>PARIS - What's the old joke? A conservative is a liberal who has just
>been
>mugged? Well, I am a conservative who has just been "mugged" by the
>socialized French health system, and, to my astonishment, I'm a
>believer.
>I have lived in France for nearly 19 years. Until about two years ago I
>was
>very cross about the amount I had to pay in taxes and in "social
>charges,"
>which finance the medical system, in which a pauper gets about the same
>medical care as a millionaire.
>
>Let me take you quickly through my experience of being gravely ill in
>France.
>
>For 20 years or so I had been a gobbler of antacids in one form or
>another,
>and in October 1998 I began to have trouble swallowing. I assumed it was
>an
>ulcer and took the appropriate medicine, but it didn't go away.
>
>At the end of the year I was referred to a doctor who performed an
>endoscopy, in which, under anesthetic, a tube is inserted in the throat,
>allowing the doctor to have a look around and do a biopsy. He found that
>I
>had a malignant tumor at the base of my esophagus, where it meets the
>stomach, that had virtually closed the passage.
>
>The doctor lost no time. He called my local hospital, which fortunately
>was
>one of the four in the Paris area that could do the operation that I
needed,
>and reserved me a bed for the next day.
>
>At the hospital, within an hour or two of my arrival, my surgeon, who
>has
>the title of professor, as he is head of the department of digestive
>surgery, paid me a visit. He outlined the operation I would have, and,
>in
>answer to my question, said the mortality rate for the kind of cancer
>that
I
>had was about 85 percent within the first three years. But, he said,
>"Don't
>worry, we're going to beat it."
>
>Foolishly, I suppose, I believed him. Now, more than two years later, I
>still do; he has lots of charisma.
>
>After my operation, which lasted more than 10 hours, I was in the
>hospital
>another three weeks, then home, where a nurse came by each day to give
>me
>the shots I needed, check and dress my surgical wounds and make sure
>that I
>wasn't losing weight. Then back to the hospital for three days of
>chemotherapy every three weeks - four treatments in all.
>
>I was operated on in mid-January 1999, went back to work part-time in
>mid-May, and returned to work full-time in September. (For those of you
>who
>are less than enthusiastic at the prospect of going to work in the
>morning,
>there is nothing like a serious illness to adjust your outlook.)
>
>Why does socialized medicine seem to work in some places and be a
>disaster
>elsewhere? Anyone who reads the British press is assaulted daily with
>tales
>of how cancer patients have to wait months for an appointment with an
>oncologist, or a candidate for a hip or knee replacement has to wait
>years.
>In France, such delays can be measured in days or, at most, weeks.
>
>Why the difference? Take a deep breath. These are the numbers, provided
>by
>the French and British health ministries and translated into dollars
>(bear
>in mind that Britain and France have roughly the same populations).
>French
>total expenditure on health in 1999 was $109.5 billion. In Britain it
>was
>about $78.02 billion. Per capita, it was $1,800 in France and $1,312 in
>Britain. As a percentage of the gross domestic product, it was 8.5
>percent
>in France and 5.9 percent in Britain.
>
>I should mention that I am not yet out of the woods. My markers, blood
tests
>that indicate the presence of cancer, started to rise last summer, and
since
>the end of September I have again been in chemotherapy. The markers have
>dropped consistently, showing that the therapy is working. The treatment
>is
>debilitating. I expect to resume work part-time from April or May until
>the
>summer vacation, and full-time thereafter.
>
>Last summer, I asked a friend of mine, a dean at a medical school in New
>England, what the cost of my care would have been in the United States.
>"About $700,000," she said. I haven't seen a bill. Well, that is not
>quite
>true. I got a bill for 43 francs (about $6.50). I'm not sure what it was
>for, but I paid it.
>
>I no longer complain about my taxes.
>