USA is ranked #37 in health care. Why is France ranked #1?

I haven't got a clue but maybe the U.S. can consult them and get some ideas from them.

In France every worker has to take at least 3 weeks vacation every year. They drink a lot of wine. They can go to the doctor whenever they feel a need to, with out having to decide if it's worth paying for. Wow. What a novel idea. Health care for all.

OK France has a very good health and welfare system.It comes with thier Social goverment...........Down side very high taxes and a system like in the U.K. where the people that pay the most into it seem to get the least out. Like all political options, socialism has its pluss and minuses.

Good question though.....I think America has long been due an overhaul of the way it looks after its sick......but be prepared for a 5%tax hike

Damn those French! Where do they get off being Socialist and having the best health care system in the world? We're gonna have to invade them in fix that!

Because the US health care system essentially sucks and the French one rocks

because they are 'extreme socialist' and are evil, and they pay taxes, OUTRAGE!!!!

france has much better pastries! (just joking). because the french live 5 years longer than the average american. the french have significantly lower infant mortality rate than the usa. the french people aren't as obese, don't have as high a rate of AIDS, are not as susceptible to stress and heart attacks. the average frenchman sees his doctor 25% more often than americans yet the french pay half as much for health care. i strongly believe that the us has the better doctors, but, the us has bigger problems and private greedy insurance that makes physicians spend 7 times more of their time fighting private insurance authorizing agents (AKA denying agents) rather than providing care for patients! personally, i like their pastries!

Bribery.

No, the French care about the health of their people and they understand that a healthy nation does better economically and socially.

I don't know if France deserves to be ranked #1 in
healthcare or not, but I think our country (USA) ranking #37
is pretty fitting. We're right there or somewhere in
that neighbor and should not come as a surprise.

America has the best health care in the world. People from France, the UK, China and from all over the world goes to America to get health care. Get your facts straight.
If Bozo Obama has his way, then we won't, but until then, we do.

I'm gonna get a lot of negative ratings for this but because Obama's president.

First, there not. The WHO stopped ranking healthcare systems in 2000.

Second, France is ranked number one because they scored better on a set of five criteria, many of which have nothing to do with healthcare.

For example, 25% of the rankings measured various life expectancy stats. Of course, these stats have little to do with quality of care. Life expectancy is influenced by factors such as murder rate, obesity, alcohol consumption, and other lifestyle factors which have nothing to do in quality of care. In fact, America has the BEST survival rate of all countries for 13 of the 16 most common cancers.

25% of the ranking is based on healthcare distribution and another 25% is based on financial fairness. Thus, 50% of the ranking is not linked to quality of care at all. In fact, all countries with socialized medicine will rank higher in the U.S. solely because they have socialized medicine. It does not matter if the quality of care is piss poor. So long as everyone gets that piss poor healthcare coverage, that country will get max points for healthcare distribution.

The last 25% of the ranking is judged on responsiveness. This ranking measures a variety of factors such as speed of service, choice of doctors, and amenities. Although speed of service is a valid measure of quality of care, choice of doctors and amenities really do not.

because USA isnt worried about HEALTH CARE. hint *health*
They are worried about money for doctors, HMO's, Prescriptions...and keeping people in redudant treatment with faulty drugs that cause more than they help. Its about patenting things...about putting people into debt for easily treated diseases...that have herbal remedies that are helpful but not given.

Who does the rankings?

Bear in mind that the WHO hasn't produced these rankings since 2000. You may have slipped farther down by now, if they still had them.

Do you even have to ask that!!

Because they treat everything with really good wine.

Maybe...because they run away from anything remotely dangerous?

http://10.16.11.151:15871/cgi-bin/blockpage.cgi?ws-session=17545584

(For those who take offense...it's a joke. Get over it.)

People come to USA for care? Only if they are rich enough to afford it! When someone outlaws LOBBYISTS it may help the US health care system! The House and Senators then cannot be Bought!

Wine.

Difference in population?

The way i look at it were all slaves to the grind of paying bills and taxes, and if your going to have slaves you might as well give them healthcare, makes them live longer so they can give you more money, so yes a good socialized medical system is a good thing, the only downside to it is it costs alot, and you have to make cuts somewhere to have a good socialized medical system.

Easy answer. The World Health Organization (part of the UN), who did these rankings, heavily weighed whether or not a nation had "universal coverage", and whether expensive care might be a financial burden on the recipient. This represents a disturbing bias, to say the least. By WHO standards, the shoddy care available in Cuba is highly ranked, because it is government-provided.

If you don't include these two very-heavily-weighed factors, the WHO actually ranked the US #1 in patient treatment and quality of care.

Likely because the ranking committee is made up of a bunch of socialists who have an agenda.

Anyway, all such comparisons are flawed by reason of size alone. Most countries that are compared favorably are the mere size of one of our small states.

France has a very well funded system with a high success rate. They're notorious for their post treatment care and mandated paid time off work to recover. What's amazing is that they also spend less of their GDP on healthcare than we do, if I recall correctly we spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare while France spends 11%.

Also, as a correction to one of the answers already posted, we would not need a tax increase of 5%, it would be more around 1%. The Doctors for Socialized Medicine found that socialized medicine in America would require a 1-2% income tax increase and a 7% business tax. The interesting thing is that businesses already providing healthcare for their employees are paying roughly 8-9% of their income. Also, if you run the numbers of the amount of income you would loose by a 1-2% tax increase, it's usually less than what people are paying for their insurance now. For example, my mother who works for a very large hospital in Michigan would pay less than half of what she does now, under a socialized healthcare system.

What is measured in this comparison? That matters.

But it's NOT the #1 country people go to for CARE. It's the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

First tell me where you got this information and then maybe I can give you an answer. If it was from the United Nations website, it is no doubt propaganda.

USA also spends 17% of their GDP on health care and France pays only 11% of their GDP on health care. They pay less and have a much better system.

BRAVO, Linc!

It's the wine.

Because America cares about quality of care.

First, the rankings you refer to are 10 years old and long outdated.

Second, the rankings you refer to rank the U.S. number one in QUALITY, but 37th overall due to cost and distribution of care.

Third, France is number one because the WHO rankings put the greatest emphasis on distribution of healthcare.