France has the #1 rated healthcare systemn in the world. THe French pay just over half as much per person as we do. Why don't we copy what works in reforming US healthcare? See LINK:

Well, if they are illegal then they have no papers, why not the French system but to get that universal healthcare you need to be able to prove you have a legitimate right? Easy, surely?

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by Jadey - Vive la difference on November 22nd, 2009

i agree with you 100%. the Feds have failed to enforce the immigration laws in the U.S. and now the country is being overrun with illegals. they forge papers, make fraud drivers license and no one really knows who is who. the illegals planned it that way. a forged document could be their brother, cousin or who knows? this is not the answer. what do you do with 20 million illegal immigrants that pay no taxes, have no bank accounts, have no health insurance and do not support the American economy? they send their money across the border to Mexico. this is a serious problem.

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by john pennington on November 22nd, 2009

France actually does have an illegal immigrant issue John, as do many of the EU countries. I don't see how that can even be brought into play here anyway. They utilize a health card system, just as we do here in Canada. You have to meet certain criteria to get one, namely citizenship requirements or landed status. No card...no care at government expense and you HAVE to produce that card for any visit to a medical provider. Illegals have a choice...no health care or get busted when they need it. They won't be turned away for something life threatening but it comes out of their pocket ( just as it would any non resident, even you if you had no insurance at home).

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by scubabob on November 22nd, 2009

thanks for your answer. i have dealt with illigal immigrants out on the streets as a police officer. we do not really know who these people are as they have fraud papers. they will not pay for healthcare insurance, i promise you. how and where would you house 20 million illegal immigrants, since they should be arrested for not having healthcare insurance? this country is really in a mess.

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by john pennington on November 22nd, 2009

? Illegals get deported. Don't you do that as well or do you set up cozy little camps for 'em?

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by scubabob on November 22nd, 2009

Yes, as Scubabob notes, France does have serious trouble with immigration. Since we are not proposing to cover illegal aliens with our US Healthcare reform, I don't see what that has to do with looking around the world to see what works best.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on November 22nd, 2009

What I love is 20 million illegals will hardly make a dent in a program for 330 million people. But I guess it's ok to let their kids bleed to death on the street because their mom couldn't get a visa.

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by ConservativelyLiberal on November 30th, 2009

Ha! That's gotta be it. :)

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on November 22nd, 2009

And I'm sure you have some factual data to back up that claim.... I didn't think so.

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by ConservativelyLiberal on November 30th, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125608054324397621.html
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http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9259
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http://smartgirlnation.com/2009/06/popular-ranking-unfairly-misrepresents-the-us-health-care-system/
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http://www.examiner.com/x-16799-Collin-County-Republican-Examiner~y2009m8d17-WHO-gave-us-our-health-systems-ranking-of-37-and-why

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on November 30th, 2009

Oh, and why not try reading the ACTUAL SOURCE: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/whr00_en.pdf
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But who needs reality when you have an agenda, right?

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on November 30th, 2009

Conservatively biased source after conservatively biased source. Odd that these well known conservative sources are also anti-health care reform advocates. It's almost like they might have a reason to lie. So all you've truly provided is the WHO report, which I don't have the time to go through tonight, but I should be done in two or three days, and then we'll see what's what.

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by ConservativelyLiberal on November 30th, 2009

The WHO report is based on life expectancy, deaths from preventable causes, deaths in childbirth and infant mortailty. These are all hard facts easy to quantify. For my money, quality of care is all about keeping people alive.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on November 30th, 2009

Austinus: Well, all of those “conservatively biased sources” merely summarize the criteria indicated in the WHO report. But it takes a truly biased person to reject a position merely because of the speaker (glad to see you do not hide your bias). I will check back in two or three days to see how you will try to spin the report.
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Jim: You should read the report. The factors you cite are only 25% of the WHO rankings. Oh yeah, and America ranks NUMBER ONE in the WHO ranking that actually measures quality of care. If you actually bothered to learn the facts, you would see that the WHO ranking is based most only financial distribution and quantity of care, NOT quality of care.
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“For my money, quality of care is all about keeping people alive.” I could not agree with you more, which is why America’s healthcare is so great. But again, who needs reality when you have an agenda, right?

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on November 30th, 2009

OhLook: As is typical of a BIASED individual you put words into my mouth. I didn't say I rejected their claims, only that I refuse to take them at face value. Nice to see that no matter what I say you'll just hear what you'd like.

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by ConservativelyLiberal on November 30th, 2009

If our quantifiable issues that I listed put us at the bottom of the Industrialized world in health care, how do you then, if you value life, say we are number 1? Makes no sense. It's gust stubborn chauvinism.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 1st, 2009

You should read the report so you stop looking so ignorant. The report does not rank quality of care. Again, the WHO report ranks the U.S. number one is responsiveness. America has the highest survival rate for 13 of the 16 most common cancers. When it comes to quality, America is second to none.
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You obviously just want to peddle your agenda rather than discuss actual facts. If you want to increase the life expectancy of Americans, the last thing you need to do is mess with U.S. healthcare. You can improve life expectancy by banning unhealthy food and activities. Although many Americans actually value freedom, so you would get some resistance to this.
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Over half the country opposes socialized medicine because they value quality of care. You disagree that America provides quality of care, yet you have not cited a single criteria in regards to quality of care that America is lacking. And again, the very source you cite as you authority (the WHO report) ranks America numb

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 2nd, 2009

If quality care results in lower life expectancy, higher death rates from preventable causes, greater infant mortality and more women dying in childbirth, then you have a very, very strange definition in mind for quality. I will certainly read the PDF with an open mind now that I know what was wrong with the link. It is you, my friend, that has demonstrated again and again a closed mind and aggression toward any view outside your own.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 2nd, 2009

You obviously don’t care about reality, and instead just want to argue your agenda. You can call me close minded all you want, but your failure to provide any facts to support your view just highlights your ignorance.
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Life expectancy has little to nothing to do with healthcare. America is the only country that counts a fetus born at 22 months gestation as a “life birth” because only in America does a fetus at 22 months have a chance of survival. America has the BEST survival rate of 13 of the 16 most common cancers and for traumatic injuries.
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Your argument is akin to saying that we need to change our healthcare system to prevent global warming; or to prevent car accidents. So keep up your ignorant viewpoints based on nothing but your agenda, but don’t be surprised when people reject your view in favor of reality.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 2nd, 2009

Um ok I'm not an idiot. I can follow logic pretty well, and OhLook I don't see your position as having any merit. You're arguing that America has better medication and medical practices than other countries. But we're saying we pay twice as much as the French and receive less service. You're arguing about medical treatment and we're arguing about dollar for dollar return for our coverage. So exactly what is it you're not understanding?

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by ConservativelyLiberal on December 2nd, 2009

Tried 3 times to grab the PDF with the corrected URL. It stalled after 10 minutes twice in Firefox and ran an hour in Google Chrome before it finally stalled. :(
I will try again tomorrow. Maybe it's the WHO server that's the problem.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 2nd, 2009

“But we're saying we pay twice as much as the French and receive less service.” If you want to speak logically, you have to define “we.” I don’t know about you, but me and 270 million other Americans are not receiving less service.
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You are talking about quantity and I am talking about quality. Again, even the WHO ranks the U.S. number 1 in responsiveness. Why is it that leaders from other countries come to America for our “over priced” treatment? The answer is because they are willing to pay more for better care. They are willing to pay more because there chance of survival is better if treated in America. That extra quality costs money.
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If you get cancer, your chance of survival is better if you are treated in America than any other country. If you suffer traumatic injury, the same is true. America has more trauma centers per capita than any other country? Why is that, considering that trauma centers are very inefficient (i.e. you are paying surgeons to stand around)? It is because that inefficiency equates to better care. It is a well documented fact that your chance of survival from a traumatic injury is over 10 times greater if you are in surgery within one hour. Because of this, the American healthcare system has inefficient traumas centers that help guarantee you are within surgery within that critical hour.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 2nd, 2009

Jim: It must be user error. The URL works fine. Moreover, if you google the report, it shows up in many places.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 2nd, 2009

I'll try Googling it. I'm a Web developer. I really don't think the issue is user error, although I am embarrassed I didn't spot the spurious period -- which DID get there due to user error.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 2nd, 2009

Jim: In English we put periods at the end of sentences. Thus, the period is not an error. However, the person who programmed AB should have designed the automatic linking feature to ignore the trailing period.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 3rd, 2009

Since you find it so easy to be hyper critical of others and are so cock sure of your own perfection, I thought it worthwhile to point out to you that doing so on the end of a URL in an internet post will usually produce a bad link.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 3rd, 2009

I am not perfect. However, I do choose not to comment on things that I am now knowledgeable about. If only more people would follow suit, we would have much fewer lies floating around. I will be shocked the day I can have a conversation on AB (or some other online forum) in which the participants could simply stay on topic and discuss the merits of an issue.
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And I did not create that link. I merely typed English text in a textbox so that others can copy and paste it into their browser. If you call me out on a mistake I actually make, I will gladly acknowledge my error. But I did not program AB, nor did I place a period within a link tag.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 4th, 2009

Let's just agree to disagree. Our perspectives on healthcare are obviously so divergent neither of us are likely to convince the other.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 4th, 2009

I don’t try to convince people to change their viewpoints on ideological questions. If your view is that the government’s job is to provide healthcare, I disagree, but there is no right or wrong answer on this subject.
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But if you are going to make erroneous argument like America has low quality healthcare, I will call you out on your fallacies. Quality of healthcare is a factual question with a right and wrong answer. Moreover, all the evidence we have indicates America’s healthcare system does not lack in quality. Again, if the WHO, which ranked the U.S. healthcare system at 37th in 2000 acknowledge that we were number one in quality.
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There are many people on both sides of the political spectrum who have an agenda and will argue it until the end to reach their goals. But there are enough people out there who have no agenda, and are just looking for facts. For those people’s sake, it is worth my time pointing fallacies being spread by those peddling their agenda.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 4th, 2009

I am unsubscribing, but not without protesting your insistence on being right by self proclamation. Things aren't necessarily true just because you say so, or because I say so, for that matter.
 
You choose to reject statistics as unreliable where they deal with easily quantified things such as life expectancy, infant mortality, deaths in childbirth and deaths from preventable causes. Yet you insist that a far fuzzier measurement of 'quality of care' is unassailably accurate because it shows the result you want to achieve. My take is that healthcare is ultimately about keeping people alive, and that healthcare that fails to do that isn't quality care no matter what expert says it is.
 
I am unsubscribing. You can post on for as long as your ego needs declaring yourself to be completely right and all who disagree with your 'objective' view of 'facts' to be blind or deluded. Happy self congratulation.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on December 5th, 2009

I am not right by self proclamation.
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“You choose to reject statistics as unreliable where they deal with easily quantified things such as life expectancy, infant mortality, deaths in childbirth and deaths from preventable causes.” This is incorrect. You keep proclaiming that the WHO only relied upon these things, but the WHO study (which I even linked to) clearly says otherwise. Moreover, I completely agree that the life expectancy in America is lower than many other industrialized countries. Although this is a fact, it has little to nothing to do with healthcare.
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“My take is that healthcare is ultimately about keeping people alive, and that healthcare that fails to do that isn't quality care no matter what expert says it is.” I agree, which is why America has such great quality of care. If you have cancer, you have a better chance of staying alive in America. If you suffer a traumatic injury, you have a better chance of surviving in America. If you have a heart attack, you have a better chance of surviving in America.
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You can ignore the facts and stick to your agenda all you want, but the facts don’t lie.

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by OhLook - IamNoLongerAnonymous on December 6th, 2009

And you are an inchoate golliwog.

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by Jim in a Nautilus COAT on March 19th, 2010