United States is world leader in Economy and GDP, however when it come to health care it’s ranked #37 as per survey done by World Health Organization, France enjoys #1 spot for its health care system.

Keys differences between 2 countries are as follows

• In France everyone has medical insurance, whereas in US 15% of population is uninsured.
  France has Government backed health care system, In US it’s mainly run by private insurance companies.
• In France 70% of heath care cost is paid by government, remaining most of 30% paid by employers.
• In US insurance companies provides partial cost (could be any where from 0% to 100%, depending on treatment and level of insurance patient has), remaining has to be paid by the patient.
• US spends double the amount of money then what France does on health Insurance, yet lags behind other wealthy nations in such measures as infant mortality and life expectancy.
• In France certain long term & expensive illness are covered 100% by the national insurance.
• In France, the system is set up both to ensure that patients have lots of choice in picking doctors and specialists and to ensure that doctors are not constrained in making medical decisions

When i first came to this country,  I was surprised to see the TV commercials from drug companies pleading me to ask my Doctor, I always used to ponder, Why should  I ask my doctor?  Aren’t the doctors supposed to tell me what to do?

Over the years i realized that Medical System in US works on push model (analogous push v.s pull mechanism). You always need to ask Doctors to do things , otherwise right treatment wont come to you. Here are few examples from my personal life which have made me reach that belief.

Story 1

This is about my friend who started experiencing difficulty walking and started dragging her feet while walking, She also experienced  difficulty speaking.
It seemed like parts of her body were out of her control. She consulted her primary health care provider who referred her to Neurologist.

Neurologist did MRI/CITI scan and told her that she had “multiple sclerosis” which is a very serious illness.
She was completely freaked out when she heard this, one of things that happens when you hear something like that, is your brain doesn’t accept the fact and you go into state of denial.
So she started consulting other specialists, few of specialists came up with similar diagnosis.She even had hard time getting the appointments with specialists as most of time doctors didn’t take in any new patients or even if they did they didn’t have any available appointments for 6 months. Finally, she found a right Doctor who diagnosed her correctly and treated her.

It turned out that she had blood clot in her brain and was cured with help of blood thinner.Turned out be minor thing but I can’t imagine trauma she must have gone through for few months until she found the right doctor.

Story 2

This time I was at the receiving end & victim of the Medical system, On one my trips to India I caught up a sickness on my way back to States, I was having high fever few days so decided to consult my Primary Care Physician,
Doctor asked me the symptoms, and told him I was having high fever with chills, high fatigue that was interfering with my work.
Doctor did routine examination and said its flu.He asked me to take rest, drink plenty of fluid and was also kind enough to write note of leave of absence at work to my employer.
 
However I wasn’t convinced with this diagnosis. I had caught flu in the past and although symptoms were similar I was experiencing something severe than regular flu.I asked him about the medication and he said “you can have Tylenol if there is high fever”.
 
Few days went by and fever was not relenting, it started getting worse, I remember being covered with 3 blankets and still shivering and sweating at same time. I could not eat much and whatever I eat came out.

Even my wife now started getting worried, she has studied Medicine in India and based on her medical knowledge, she was suspecting something, along lines of malaria.So we called doctor again, but it being weekend my Primary care Doctor wasn’t available, however after talking to representative on phone for about an hour, managed to get an appointment with different Doctor.
At the Doctor’s office again after waiting for long time, we finally saw the Doctor. I was not only was exhausted, but also experiencing lot of fatigue.

Doctor agains  says she was willing to bet it was flu, my wife suggest her that we have been to India recently in monsoon, and it could be possible for sickness to be malaria, which is quite common in India.
Doctor agrees that that could be a possibility but soon rules it out due to absence any visible bug bites.
She orders a few lab tests ,and only at my wife’s behest she also ordered a test for malaria, and it turns out test for Malaria came back positive, I was given right treatment thereafter and completely cured within few days.

There is ongoing debate about health care reform in this country concerning questions of a right to health care, access, fairness, efficiency, cost, and quality.

One of main priorites of Obama Administration is to provide affordable, accessible health care to all.
Medical reform bill might be step in right direction, however i feel we lot of such stories and struggle ahead of us and miles to go until we find system which is right for us.

Finally I would like to leave you with video from “Andy Rooney” a correspondent from Television Company CBS who came with a segment on health care on popular show 60 minutes.

• Previous Entry: Search evolution, Yahoo, Google, MSN past, present and future
• Next Entry: Threat to secularism & Indian constitution