over the cliff, onto the rocks.: House calls.

Monday, February 12, 2007

House calls.

The doctors in France make house calls.

France. The people talk funny, the food is fabulous, the climate is heavenly, the hospitals are clean, the doctors make house calls, taxes are higher, people live two years longer on average than they do here, and the country spends about half what we do, per capita, on health care.

The government [yes, your tax dollars at work] pays about 85%, the individual [or their private insurance] pays the rest. Don't know about you, but I could live with 15% co-pay.

At least now I don't have to move to Finland. I thought Finland was looking pretty good in the World Health Care Sweepstakes, till I got to France. And France is next door to Italy, geographically and in desireability of their health care system.

Details later in the week.

5 comments:

Keifus said...: Here's a post I was thinking of writing, but it just didn't have enough depth to it:

For the family get-togethers, we've been doing wine-tasting experiments the last couple of years. (I'll gladly lay any rock I can find to the foundation, and anyway, it's a good excuse to buy a quantity of decent wine.) During Christmas, we went with an old world vs. new world pairing. Some merlots then: one from California, Australia, and Bordeaux.

I've got to tell you that the wine tasting conformed to every stereotype you can imagine of French sophistication vs. slovenly obnoxious New World bluster. The French wine was delicious and subtle, while the California stuff--though certainly not bad--screamed in your face.

France sounds nice for the reasons you mention. European politics has its own sort of buffoonery, as far as I can tell, however, and no shortage of its own forms of bigotry. (In other words, it's still inhabited by people.)

If I had no ties, I'd certainly consider a few years abroad. (But as it is, I have lots of ties.)

K
gipqvgs: giant piquant veggies (sounds good, actually); Tuesday, February 13, 2007 7:45:00 AM
Keifus said...: is this today's meme or something?

vvwth: valve width; Tuesday, February 13, 2007 2:11:00 PM
hipparchia said...: [if you can't out-write them, scoop them on the theme of the day]

if i've ever had french wine, nobody ever told me what i was drinking. we've done the wine-tasting thing at a couple of family reunions, but that's only because we were touring whatever local winery happened to be nearby. alas, none of our reunions have been held in france.

i do sometimes pick up a bottle of inexpensive-ish wine, with an interesting label, from a winery i never heard of. these tend to be australian, but i'll make it a point to look for something from france.

yabbut... none of their buffoons have mounted a full-scale invasion of another country lately [not too lately anyway].

the rioting and car burnings suggest that france hasn't quite got all their social kinks worked out, and faced with having to eat snails, i'll stage a hunger strike first, and i've got ties here too. still ....; Tuesday, February 13, 2007 8:56:00 PM
Keifus said...: If they have Budweiser in Ireland (horrors! this, according to twiffer), then I'm sure they have burgers in France (even if they serve it with a sneer). Choking down a few slugs seems a small price for all the rest of the yummy goodness. They tend to load 'em in garlic and butter anyway.

We got the Bordeaux because its name was the same name as our street. Wine tasting at chateau Keifus is still en l'enfance (l'enfance terrible maybe).

Plus, I always wanted to see the hy-rizes in Vichy.

K

P.S. what happened to your other two readers anyway? I feel funny all alone here.

uszloki: uzis, lookout!
cxkfi: chateaux de les keifi; Wednesday, February 14, 2007 11:04:00 AM
hipparchia said...: i adore both butter and garlic, but there's not enough of either in all the world to cover up the taste of snail.; Wednesday, February 14, 2007 5:27:00 PM