Have you examined T.R. Reid's research? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/21/AR2009082101778.html

He's a journalist with a bad shoulder who traveled the world for three years examining healthcare. He's been in the news quite a bit in recent days and he seems to have both personal experience and a lot of research as to what's what in each country.

Jerry,
That was excellent.

Amy - this bit from jerry's link is not exhaustive - but it takes a nibble at the pointless (to me) and excessively jingoistic line about medical research I hear so often here.

"Cost controls stifle innovation.

False. The United States is home to groundbreaking medical research, but so are other countries with much lower cost structures. Any American who's had a hip or knee replacement is standing on French innovation. Deep-brain stimulation to treat depression is a Canadian breakthrough. Many of the wonder drugs promoted endlessly on American television, including Viagra, come from British, Swiss or Japanese labs.

Overseas, strict cost controls actually drive innovation. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price. (And Japanese labs still make a profit.)"

>>Jerry's link is not excellent, but maybe somebody else can explain why because I was up really late, and Lucy just woke me, and I have to go back to bed.

Be all tired & peevish then, Amy!
The USA is a big, beautiful country that does big, beautiful medical research. Much of it, of course, initially funded through the government.

This doesn't make every other nation vaguely parasitic.

...an MRI scan of the neck region costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98. Under the pressure of cost controls, Japanese researchers found ways to perform the same diagnostic technique for one-fifteenth the American price.

Is that "cost the patient $98" with the insurance company or government picking up the remainder?

>>Is that "cost the patient $98" with the insurance company or government picking up the remainder?

Conan,
The Wapo writer gives part of the answer here:

"1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the government paying the bills. Others -- for instance, Canada and Taiwan -- rely on private-sector providers, paid for by government-run insurance. But many wealthy countries -- including Germany, the Netherlands, Japan and Switzerland -- provide universal coverage using private doctors, private hospitals and private insurance plans."

Jody -

please note that nothing like what Germany et.al. do is being proposed in the US. In fact, the proposals being offered here are essentially a slo-mo approach to get to Hillarycare, which would have been worse than either England or Canada's systems.

And make no mistake about it, that's still the goal of the left in this country. To have a system in which every decision about your health and lifestyle is dictated by bureaucrats.

If you listen closely, you can catch them admitting it in an unguarded moment.

For the greater good, of course.

Jody,

The WaPo writer stated that they use private doctors and plans in Japan, but he didn't state there was no government financial cost or involement.

That was my question. If no government cost, then we definitely need to study this program.

I suspect, however, that as a foreigner in Japan with no Japanese insurance plan, Reid's care was subsidized by the government to some extent.

>>To have a system in which every decision about your health and lifestyle is dictated by bureaucrats.

Brian,
I am familiar with your opinion.

Seriously - if you wanna unpick the stated facts in the article itself, I'd love to read your take?

Jody -

I'm not interested in the facts in the article because they are not germane to the healthcare debate we are presently having in this country.

When we had an opportunity to have something in the way of a subsidized private insurance for the poor, we didn't do that, and instead increased the dependence on employer-provided plans and created the monster known as the HMO.

Now, if our government were interested in having a debate about getting them OUT of the healthcare provision business, I'd be interested in the few countries with a private system. However our government has made it perfectly clear that nothing short of total control is what they are after.

Which is why I prefer to focus on Britain and Canada, as those are the systems that our congresscritters are attempting to mimic.

And I'm not willing to settle for "not bad" when what we have now is already superior.

And then you read stuff like
this:

Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets

> This doesn't make every other nation
> vaguely parasitic.

What makes them vaguely parasitic is counting on the most powerful nation in the world to protect them...

- Protecting them from the biggest international disruptions. How helpful was it for Western Europe to be unconcerned about paying for defense from the Soviet Union as she was rebuilt? How great would it have been for the United States to have spent that money on herself?

- And protecting them from smaller concerns. Europe gets 80% -90% of her oil from the Middle East, whereas the United States gets 15% - 20% of her oil from the Middle East... But looking who's paying, in both blood and treasure, for the war that can keep the oil out of the hands of crime families for the next 50 years.

Golly, it turns out Europe has money for socialized health care... Or thought it did, and thought it had earned it.

>>Golly, it turns out Europe has money for socialized health care... Or thought it did, and thought it had earned it.

Golly, the nerve of those foreigners, Crid!
Anyone would think they had their own governments!!

Funny, how all these citizens in robust democracies, such as Great Britain, Canada, and France, stay with their health cre systems, which actually consume smaller fractions of their GDP's than the US system (non-system).
I guess those French voters should listen to US pundits. We know.

Jody - how much money did Britain not pay for national defense with the Soviet Union just a few blocks away (metaphorically speaking) during the Cold War? France? Germany?

The reason we did what we did (set up a security umbrella over Europe) is we figured it was cheaper and easier than allowing you to have your own militaries and us having to break up your stupid wars every thirty years or so.

And you guys spent your GDP on socialized medicine and welfare for immigrants.

Yes, but you get chronic unemployment and a hostile immigrant population to go along with it!

>>And you guys spent your GDP on socialized medicine and welfare for immigrants.

And solid-gold spittoons for all our royals, Brian! Don't forget those!

Jody,

Europe is a continent not a country. England, France and Germany which are in Europe have all said recently that their governments can not continue to foot the bill for their socialized health care plans. Canada has just decided to move away from socialized medicine because costs are driving them into bankruptcy.

I find it very curious that the criminals in Washington would follow in the footsteps of countries now looking to abandon socialized medicine, because it is a complete and utter failure. And we want to go in that direction?

Brian is absolutely correct in his assertion that this is all about government control. I for one am tired of this form of constant government intrusion. They are completely out of control. If however you believe you can receive better health care in a different country, move there for a year and then get back to us on how great there socialized programs are.

>>If however you believe you can receive better health care in a different country, move there for a year and then get back to us on how great there socialized programs are.

My aging, but still briskly active, parents live as long term expats in France, Ed. Like all their frog friends, they bitch endlessly about the taxes - BUT their standard of healthcare would make you drool.

(But, sure, France is about to go belly up any moment now. So nothing to learn there.)

Jody,

Regardless of the kind of health care they receive, although I doubt highly it would make me drool, what the hell good is it, if it bankrupts their country.

The only thing a socialist society truly provides is more power and wealth to the already powerful and wealthy.

If Obamas plan is so great why have all federal employees and union workers been made exempt? Food for thought.....

> Anyone would think they had their
> own governments!!

And if those governments had been doing their jobs, this wouldn't have come up.

They weren't.

Hours later: Still pissed at Jody.

> BUT their standard of healthcare
> would make you drool.

Can I talk about my mother now? Her fingers —arguably my ten favorite digits in all of human history— work well and painlessly, though the encroaching arthritis is distressingly visible. As a Kennedy-cryin' librul of the old (intellectual) school, she sometimes wonders why she can't have Le Treatment just like they do in compassionate Frogland. And I look at her swollen knuckles and think "Because, Dearest Woman, those ten fingers worked to pay for that health care, as well as your own."

The first responsibility of decent government is to protect the populace from foreign enemies. The French found that was going to be taken care of anyway....

So what exactly are you asking us to admire?

Pay my mortgage, pay my house insurance, pay my property taxes. Do you have any idea how my lifestyle would improve if the greatest financial burden were lifted? Free, safe real estate is the quintessence of nationhood.

My mother sincerely hopes your mother is enjoying her sunset years. She fucking well ought to be.

Grrrr.

Grrrrrrrrrrr.

Crid,

I feel your pain bro, fuck this socialist bullshit. Give me back just half my taxes and I'd pay the doctor out of my pocket plus buy a new Harley and put the rest in the bank.

Who the hell does Jody and her kind think are going to pay for this. My guess is she works for the fed.....

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.

Not so. Some countries, such as Britain, New Zealand and Cuba, do provide health care in government hospitals, with the taxpayers paying the bills.

I suspect, however, that as a foreigner in Japan with no Japanese insurance plan, Reid's care was subsidized by the taxpayers to some extent.

There, fixed.

++++

Golly, it turns out Europe has money for socialized health care... Or thought it did, and thought it had earned it.

Exactly.

To be fair, Britain comes close to pulling its weight. All the other European countries are premier league freeloaders.

Crid,
I am truly sorry about your Ma.

It's daft, though, to get bitter about the outstanding level of healthcare my highly taxed parents are fortunate to receive in France - a country they made sure they could afford to spend their semi-working retirement in.

They've lived in France for 15 years and will stay now for good.

There ARE improvements that can be made in the US system, with its HMOs.

My comment about my parents was in answer to Ed's challenge: "If however you believe you can receive better health care in a different country, move there for a year and then get back to us on how great there socialized programs are."

BOTH my parents - mother and stepfather have worked full time all their adult lives -including the period during which my mother was suddenly left a widow with 4 young kids (when our father died very suddenly).

And I am very grateful they can enjoy their sunset period without permanent anxiety about medical bills.

So long as they never forget who's earned their gratitude. While Mom's birthday's in February, she prefers summer-y floral arrangements, and is less fond of chocolates. I'll send more details just after New Year's.

PS- No pity for my mother. She never complains about anything, ever, except Republicans in executive office. (She was made a young, un-degreed widow with only three kids, but her own crippling illness [not arthritis] turned up the heat a little bit.)

But I beg you again.... Think carefully how this wealth came into France's public sphere in these generations, and tell us:

What exactly do you want us to admire about this outcome? It was a transoceanic wealth transfer. Are we supposed to learn something from it? Bill Gates' kids are probably teenagers now. Should we admire their carefree demeanor on a summer afternoon?

>>So long as they never forget who's earned their gratitude.

I can, Crid, imagine reminding them of their obligations in this matter. The conversation Would NOT go well!

Needs to be said, doncha think?

But you will just never, ever take the point. You think that somehow, policy can be arranged so that nobody will ever have to be the grownups in your household... Somehow, we can all be teenagers staying home to watch video games while Dad goes out to earn the money.

But we're Dad! We're where the rubber meets the road. How many metaphors do you need? This is an almost Brianesque aversion to clear thinking. It's like you still want think we should be buying and selling mortgages like it was 2007.

I can't understand it. I can't understand it. I can't understand it. It's lunacy.

"The conversation Would NOT go well!"

What does that even mean?

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhh

Anybody remember the tech bubble? For a few months of 1999(?), there was a period where someone was running a grocery delivery service at no charge. I forget the details. Presumably you'd pick things off a web page, some kid would bring them over in a Volkswagon, and you'd pay the (typical) prices for the groceries. As the bubble inflated, the costs seemed to be covered.

After it burst, I remember talking to this gifted art director about how insane all the 'internet economy' had been. And she just couldn't take the point that it was bogus. "Yeah, but it was great having my groceries delivered for free..." she said wistfully.

I'll never forget it. This was a bright woman of talent and achievement. But she was completely ready to live in a fantasy where her own ass can be wiped without creating value.

Moi:"The conversation Would NOT go well!"

Crid: "What does that even mean?"

It means, Crid, that your rabid dog-in-the-manger foaming about their excellent healthcare would be considered remarkably ill-mannered bluster by my parents in France.

And, further, that your self-serving sums about the debt owed in perpetuity by all beneficiaries of said froggie healthcare system to all Americans would strike them as obtuse.

(Also you appear to be the one who has a strange hang up about the role of Daddies and teenagers in the global family of man.)

>>I'll never forget it. This was a bright woman of talent and achievement. But she was completely ready to live in a fantasy where her own ass can be wiped without creating value.

Rereading this, Crid, I don't remotely catch your drift.

As far as I can determine: Crid's lovely friend took advantage of a new, free grocery delivery service, based on internet orders. Cynical Crid shook his head ruefully when the firm went bust - it would never have worked, he sighed. The model was obviously flawed, he opined with a heavier sigh still...it was, basically, ass wiping that didn't create value.

Blah blah...just like Jody's parents or something.

Actually, grocery delivery via internet orders is going great guns in the UK!

I've just checked the 2008 reports & business is booming. FYI here's an older article specifically describing how the plucky little ole UK overcame the flaws in the old wonky model, presumably similar to that used by the belly-up company in the USA.

http://tinyurl.com/mq9nut

(This wasn't where my comment was going at all! Never mind. I find it all fascinating....)

...the plucky little ole UK overcame the flaws in the old wonky model, presumably similar to that used by the belly-up company in the USA.

Jody,

Tesco's model is similar to the one being used by Safeway (and other grocers) in the US.

Instead of building a centralized warehouse for the online grocery business, Safeway uses their existing stores. They let people have their online orders delivered or let them choose to come to the store and pick up their orders (and, maybe, do a little more shopping).

Each store has a truck with which to make deliveries for online orders and a staff to fill those orders from the store shelves.

And they charge a delivery fee.

Wal-Mart likes this model so much, they're adopting it - and adding drive-thru windows for pick-up.

The online grocery business models used early in the tech boom consisted of standalone companies (peapod.com, groceryworks.com, etc.) with no brick-and-mortar stores. So, they built large warehouses in cities across the US and delivered for free.

In the heady days of "venture capital for everyone" these companies were awash with cash.

When the market went south, however, no one had any more money to throw away, and they fell apart. Their problem was that they provided an expensive service and didn't charge for it.

It costs money to have someone move through a warehouse and fill orders. And it costs money to deliver those orders.

The average profit margin in grocery is 1%. The Peapods and Grocery Works thought they would increase margin by not having to maintain brick-and-mortar stores. And they did, but not enough to cover the additional costs involved in fulfillment and delivery.

One reason is that the order sizes were not there. People balked at buying meat and produce over the Internet (letting someone else select their steaks or tomatoes). And, since they were going to Safeway for meat and produce (and milk and cheese etc.) anyway, they picked up other things while they were there - not buying them from the online grocers. The average basket size for a Peapod or Grocery Works order was lower than it was for a Safeway trip.

Not to mention, people couldn't "pop in" if they were out of milk or coffee or needed something quickly, so people never gave up shopping at the brick-and-mortar stores.

Inexperienced CEOs ignored these issues and pushed to build market share instead of building profitability - thinking the investment money would always be there as long as the company was gaining market share.

The root problem was that the online-only grocers failed to appreciate how people actually shopped and developed an ideal model that would work but only if people would change their way of doing things.

Those changes were not going to be made because the customer decided to change for convenience or price, rather those changes were to be made because the retailer demanded it.

Add to previous post:

Safeway (and other grocers) built their online grocery models around the way people actually shop instead of demanded fundamental changes. As people incrementally change (making more online orders, etc.), these grocers will change with them.

Conan,
Thanks for that (you've very clearly amplified a couple of points that had puzzled me).

> foaming about their excellent
> healthcare would be considered
> remarkably ill-mannered bluster
> by my parents

It's not possible that they'd be as offended as I am by your smug blindness to the point:

> I don't remotely catch your drift.

The blessing in both cases —"free" grocery delivery and European socialism— was the product of inappropriate, ill-conceived investment. In both cases, investors stand to suffer.

Shallow capitalists in the late 90's who thought the internet portended a whole new way of distributing wealth lost their shirts as eToys and their ilk went belly-up.

And instead of making Europe stronger, America's shelter of the postwar generations has defended nightmares like the willful French incapacity for assimilation. Rather than learning to create wealth in their new country, young (non-Francophonic) men riot occasionally, and then retreat to state-funded housing. All too soon they'll age and get cancer, having created no taxable wealth in their lives to pay for their care. (It's been called the greatest paradox of the human tongue: "Entrepreneur" is a French word.)

This is madness. But you, Jody, find it literally exemplary:

> their standard of healthcare
> would make you drool.

The only problem is, it ain't really their standard, now is it? Again, for at least the third time: What's the best lesson we can take from what's happened to your parents? That's it's best to play international allegiances and the happenstance of history for one's own benefit?

With this explained to you by metaphor, you take instant fascination with the distraction, as would a child who sees something shiny.

> remarkably ill-mannered

My balls, Jody. My stinky balls.

>>Rather than learning to create wealth in their new country, young (non-Francophonic) men riot occasionally, and then retreat to state-funded housing.

Crid,
I believe I've had to correct you, sternly, on this point before?

Where is your evidence - any evidence whatsoever -that the young rioters from the infamous suburbs of Paris or anywhere else in France during the past five or so years were not perfectly fluent in French?

I followed many of these riots via the extensive BBC news coverage, and I can assure you I heard the young male agitators shouting in French, decrying the government's policy of alienation of their fellow French Muslims (as they saw it) - and of other second or 3rd generation immigrants - in French, and being interviewed at length by French-speaking reporters - and responding in flawless French.

I suspect you are making wild assumptions based, perhaps, on the proportion of Spanish-only speakers in the USA. I probably wondered if this was the reason for your baseless assertions last time too.

The French are famously protective of their official language. (Many, in fact, still quaintly mourn its loss as the international language of diplomacy).

>>What's the best lesson we can take from what's happened to your parents?

Oh, I can answer that, Crid!

Remember, should you find yourself in their fortunate position of enjoying excellent French healthcare, to always ask for an alternative to suppositories.

French doctors will always offer suppositories first. But they WILL switch you to pills, if you ask nicely.

Jody, you're deliberately being ignorant.

My grandfather was not born here, but he was an American.

The children born in the banlieu (sp?) will be French citizens, and will speak French, but they will never be French.

Because French is regarded as a race/class/culture construct that one must be born FROM.

America is a concept. Anyone who is willing to live the ideal can become American. No matter where they were born or the circumstances into which they were born.

And that is why there are so few muslim fundamentalists living in the US, and those that do are most often the dissatisfied offspring of upper-middle class twits that converted to islam as a way to hack off their WASP parents.

France is fucked. Demographics is destiny, and they are just not producing enough people who will be productive to cover the costs going forward.

You can't argue with math. Math will always win.

> responding in flawless French.

Oh golly, I'm certain these Albanians and Middle Eastern derivatives sip wine at funny little tables on the street; they discuss the minutiae of Camus; they smoke their cigarettes backwards; they wear darling little berets with little nubs atop the crown, if you say so.

Do they work for a living?

> should you find yourself in their
> fortunate position of enjoying
> excellent French healthcare

Delivered in France, yet essentially composed and paid for by Statesiders: I'll always think of it as American healthcare. Pisses me off.

You wanna dance away from the point again? This would be the moment.

The basic problem with all government health care systems is that whenever you provide any kind of scarce and valuable service either free of charge or heavily subsidised at the point of delivery there will always be a large amount of waste and excess demand over supply. The only way of dealing with this is to either allow the taxpayer to foot higher bills and write out more blank checks, or contain costs through rationing, controls, waiting lists and the like.

Some countries with socialist health care systems, like the UK, are able to keep their costs down through long waiting lists and bureaucratic controls limiting access to specialists and the like. But controlling costs in this way is a rather spurious achievement. If I order a cup of coffee and have to wait five hours to get it, should I be grateful that it is slightly cheaper than at another place where I get it instantly?

Controlling costs through rationing, waiting lists and bureaucratic stonewalling is inherently less efficient than using price signals. Not to mention you could die waiting for treatment.

In Australia we have a universal Medicare system where the cost of doctor's and specialist consultations are heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, as well as a public hospital system providing free treatment, and a pharmaceutical benefits scheme where prescription drugs are heavily subsidised and cheap. Consequently, we have long waiting lists in public hospitals. Plus it is well known that many doctors over-service in order to claim back more from Medicare. And the cheap prescription drugs lead to people wasting medicines or buying more drugs than they use. It also leads to a lucrative trade in people buying drugs cheap and exporting them illegally for a profit.

Years ago the government even began running advertisements advising people about how much the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme costs and urging people to not waste medicines or over-use the system. Yeah right. When the government provides drugs that may costs hundreds or thousands of dollars for a tiny fraction of the cost, of course people are going to be fucking wasteful and abuse the system. What do you expect? That the country is populated by enlightened saints all looking out for the greater good and efficient public policy?

Having to constantly listen to the likes of Jody smugly lecture everyone about how superior and more civilised the European system and way of life is does have one saving virtue.

It will help assuage my conscience when the rest of the world has to look the other way as much of the continent is terrorised by the Muslim fundamentalists teaming at their doorstep.

>>I'll always think of it as American healthcare. Pisses me off.

I understand, Crid.
I think it's a warped and pointless belief, but I understand it must irk.

As for "do they work for a living?".

Some don't.

I was simply correcting your chronic misunderstanding about the language spoken by French malcontents.

>>You can't argue with math. Math will always win.

Brian,
That's not an uninteresting view.
But have you read much Jared Diamond? (i.e. "Guns, Germs & Steel" or "Collapse"?).

His work is not precisely a rebuke to your view - but he analyzes the subtle yet critical variables that can skew the predictions made by numbers alone, in his study of the rise and fall of discrete societies.

Never heard of him.

And if you think that any nation in Western Europe is a "discrete society" to any definition of "discrete" that I understand, you're mad.

Consider that were it not for the vast military expenditures on your behalf after the Second World War, your parents would be speaking Russian before you dismiss Crid's argument.

>>Consider that were it not for the vast military expenditures on your behalf after the Second World War, your parents would be speaking Russian before you dismiss Crid's argument.

Actually, brian, both my parents have quite a gift for languages. So I expect they would have coped.

Ah.. Better red than dead, I see.

My grandfather had a slightly different view: Better dead than red.

It's an American thing. You wouldn't understand.

>>It's an American thing. You wouldn't understand.

Not so fast, brian. I may have a way to go, but there's hope for me yet!

As you lectured in this very thread:

"America is a concept. Anyone who is willing to live the ideal can become American. No matter where they were born or the circumstances into which they were born."

> I believe I've had to correct you,
> sternly, on this point before?

What the fuck are you talking about, schoolmarm?

> any evidence whatsoever -that the
> young rioters from the infamous
> suburbs of Paris or anywhere else
> in France during the past five
> or so years were not perfectly
> fluent in French?

This comes to mind:

''French youths,'' huh? You mean Pierre and Jacques and Marcel and Alphonse? Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic, it doesn't take much time in les banlieus of Paris to discover that the rioters do not think of their primary identity as ''French'': They're young men from North Africa growing ever more estranged from the broader community with each passing year and wedded ever more intensely to an assertive Muslim identity more implacable than anything you're likely to find in the Middle East. After four somnolent years, it turns out finally that there really is an explosive ''Arab street,'' but it's in Clichy-sous-Bois.

[More — Keep reading, Jody!]

And what you so primly describe as "suburbs" are in fact architectural and cultural rat cages that make America's Pruitt-Igoe look like Bel-Air. Consider this description of the furnishings:

[H]e discovered that all the furniture was of concrete, including the bed and washbasin, and attached either to the floor or walls.

Comfy! Perhaps these rioters are competent enough with the language to demand their unearned subsidies in an accent none too thick for the Sorbonne-educated governing class to understand. But we certainly have no reason to believe that they're assimilating, and you don't bother offering any.

In fact, you don't offer any argument at all. You want to quibble that some guys on TV spoke French once, as if that were a thoughtful sample. And as if it were tragically relevant to the main point, which you resist only with quips about suppositories:

> The French are famously protective
> of their official language.

"Protective"? How have the French protected themselves from anything at all?

I think one reason I enjoy beating up on you so much is that you make it so easy. BUt you really ought to take the point instead of standing there with your chin sticking out like Roberto Duran after a porterhouse steak.

Your parents pulled a fast one, and will enjoy medical care that's essentially been made available by other forces. (A favorite of those forces, for me, is the generous if perhaps inappropriate beneficence of the United States taxpayer.) France has nothing to teach us about establishing and defending an economy that provides inexpensive, high-quality health care to her citizens.

Zilch, zero, nada, nada-cantata. Nothin', goose egg.

>>You want to quibble that some guys on TV spoke French once, as if that were a thoughtful sample. And as if it were tragically relevant to the main point...

Crid,
If you don't like commenters quibbling with you, don't make large, baseless claims about foreign cultures. And don't repeat them whenever the same subject comes up.

Then you won't have to throw a tantrum!

You're the one who pontificated: "Rather than learning to create wealth in their new country, young (non-Francophonic) men riot occasionally..."

I have said nothing about the wider problems of the assimilation of malcontents in France.

My ONLY point has been that the ability - or assumed lack of it - to speak French in France is NOT a useful measure of assimilation.

In fact, you COULD have used my information against the French! Their national chauvinsm in this matter is well known - here's a random, but informed, blogger on the general topic:

Over the last 20 years, the French have put in place EU directives limiting the amount of film, television, and radio allowed to come from outside of the European Union (not more than 49%). They have massive subsidies for the French arts, they create new French words for all foreign words that enter their language (t-shirt = camisol), and they only have signs in French at the Louvre.

>>Your parents pulled a fast one, and will enjoy medical care that's essentially been made available by other forces.

Crid,
With respect (but some heat), I think you've taken this line about my parents as far as you should? Thanks.

Btw, my parents have been Francophiles, like, forever.

(I had to endure a year at a French high school, in the deep commie south of France, because of this! And I'm still not sure I've forgiven them.)

They are not health tourists.

In fact, they're an exemplary immigrant couple, they provide local employment through their thriving French village business - and my stepfather is still a brilliant downhill skier at the age of 78.

And on top of that, yes, they are relieved - and so are their children - that the inevitable indignities of aging are not endlessly compounded by a system trying to wring profit from ass-wiping.

> don't make large, baseless claims
> about foreign cultures

There's no evidence, except for your report about what you saw on TV, that these guys are speaking French, and a substantial weight of logic to suggest otherwise: If they could, they WOULD... Or they'd be assimilating so well that our perception of a French accent would change. If media types over there are as liberal and deceptive as they are elsewhere in the world, they'd be expected to hunt down the rioters who can speak in a manner that supports the socialist party line.

> My ONLY point has been that the
> ability - or assumed lack of it -
> to speak French in France is NOT
> a useful measure of assimilation.

An irrelevant point to make, that, and wrong besides.

> you COULD have used my
> information against the French!

I did, asking how they'd 'protected' themselves.

> I think you've taken this line
> about my parents as far as you
> should? Thanks.

Well, you offered it, kind of like that Quayle thang. It's not like anybody came snooping around. So... Jody.... what can their experience of health care teach us about how things can and should go?

Every time I ask this, you reply with something like:

> they are relieved - and so are
> their children - that the
> inevitable indignities of aging
> are not endlessly compounded by a
> system trying to wring profit
> from ass-wiping.

So, golly, people like it when their needs are met. ...As if that were insight. As if, for the precious case of your own ass or asses dear to you, the people wiping didn't deserve to turn a profit.

Well, we already knew this: People are completely uninterested in $upporting an industry into which they will one day place their dearest trust. [Hi, Brian!] They want the absolute best of everything, whether they can afford it or not. If they can't afford it, they feel 100% justified in asking others to pay... And some people get even nuttier, wanting it to go that way for everyone. Our taste for comfort through medicine is limitless, because our taste for comfort is limitless. This is not admirable.

Again— Nothing in the experience of France which you describe diminishes this dilemma in the slightest; quite the reverse.

And BTW, what does being a Francophile have to do with anything? I loved that one Johnny Hallyday movie, and am enchanted by the restorative power of the spa waters of the Bordeaux region. Does that mean the average Frog is on the hook for my health care?

>>There's no evidence, except for your report about what you saw on TV, that these guys are speaking French, and a substantial weight of logic to suggest otherwise...

I've played devil's advocate, Crid - and searched as hard as I can for anything that might possibly suggest my observations were atypical. The search has come up empty.

Therefore, I stand by my original observation.

I don't know what "non-Francophonic" young men you have been talking about here.

I don't think you do either.

>>So, golly, people like it when their needs are met. ...

Yes, Crid, it's great when reasonable expectations about the standard of healthcare are met.

> I don't know what "non-Francophonic"
> young men you have been talking
> about here.

The ones who'd rather burn cars and sleep in highrise concrete hovels than go out to get filthy rich in France's famously-receptive, tits-out capitalist economy, like sensible young men would do. (Be sure to follow the link called (Sensitive Urban zones) demarcated by the French Government, which are “conveniently listed on one long webpage.)

> I've played devil's advocate

How dare you. How dare you.

> it's great when reasonable
> expectations about the standard
> of healthcare are met.

The expectations you describe are not reasonable. They're a pathetic, childish fantasy of comfort from a loving Daddy who doesn't exist.

W H E R E • W I L L • T H E • M O N E Y • C O M E • F R O M

>>The ones who'd rather burn cars and sleep in highrise concrete hovels than go out to get filthy rich in France...

But they also speak French, Crid. Rum, isn't it?

Another round? Not a problem.

> they also speak French

The reason you believe this is: ________________________.

Yup, got juice here too, Crid.

I assert that you are mistaken because you are trying to deny the obvious!

My simple assertion? That these malcontent, occasionally rioting, young French males, who live in France speak French fluently.

That's a source of their anger: that despite being French, speaking French, living in France - they are seen as second class, because of their Muslim faith. Hence the violent eruptions. And so it goes round and around.

Even the excitable Steyn - from whom you, Crid, love to crib, accepts the facts of the citizenship of "most" of them.

Steyn (from your own quote above): Granted that most of the "youths" are technically citizens of the French Republic...

There is no reason at all to believe they don't/can't speak French.

Plus, the French are infamously unrelaxed about their own language, insisting even more rigidly on its hegemony within the country's borders now that it's lost almost all of its international reach & cachet.

The reason you offer NO evidence for your "non-Francophonic" assertion is that there is none to find.

Otherwise, I assume, you'd be offering cites all over the place.

> There is no reason at all to
> believe they don't/can't speak
> French.

Would you believe the government?

________________

On the 20 November 2005, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin announced tightened controls on immigration: Authorities will increase enforcement of requirements that immigrants seeking 10-year residency permits or French citizenship master the French language and integrate into society.
__________________

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has said the riots showed the immigration system was not working. He proposed a revamp of France's immigration system that has drawn widespread criticism from opposition parties and immigrant groups.

The law, which is due to be debated in the Senate in June, aims of keeping unskilled immigrants out and improve integration with language tests.

France is so secular, in fact, that 90 percent of all imams must be shipped in from abroad and 60 percent of them don't even speak French [12]. (But it's all right: they all sleep with an Arabic translation of the Code Civil under their pillow.)

____________________

As the number of immigrants and their descendants increases in a particular locality, more and more of its native French inhabitants leave for “calmer places”, thus making assimilation still more difficult. In some areas it is possible for an immigrant or his descendants to spend a whole life without ever encountering the need to speak French let alone familiarize himself with any aspect of the famous French culture.

One more... It's all Google...
__________________

There are huge sections cities/towns in France where the African-Arab population is segregated from the French population -- where the people don't speak French and where the police never go.

Crid,
Speaking reasonable French has been a requirement of citizenship for ages along with official statements from community members about character- I can't discover, however, when the language requirement first came in or exactly what any new legislation might additionally require (I'll try to dig).

As for your other refs: sure, they are parts of France where you will be surrounded by people speaking other languages to each other. This does NOT mean they don't also speak French!

(And imams generally don't riot. Nor are they "youths".)

Sezyoo.

Mais oui!

Dammit, Crid.

Gesundheit would've been a much better reply to "Sezyoo".

(The old l'esprit d'escalier...)

> Speaking reasonable French has been
> a requirement of citizenship

Then why are politicians both left (de Villianous) and right (Lil' Sarkster) offering it as the solution to the problem?

>>Then why are politicians both left (de Villianous) and right (Lil' Sarkster) offering it as the solution to the problem?

I wondered that too - & assume they are adding NEW "tougher" tests because of the inevitable post-riots bi-partisan political capital to be gained from being SEEN to crack down on immigrants- and thus clawing back votes from those disgruntled enough to start supporting the Le Pen (dad AND daughter) faction?

I remember the lingo requirement from when I lived in the deep south of froggieland with my family in the 1970s.

It wouldn't surprise me if the Brits are connected too. There's constant tension between UK & France immigration policies - because of people-smuggling across the channel. The Brits were seen as too soft & have recently kicked it up a notch with a citizenship test for the first time. It would make sense if there's been new energy in France to top the latest British initiative.

> & assume they are adding NEW "tougher"
> tests because of the inevitable post-riots
> bi-partisan political

Oh for fuck's SAKE, Jody... Is there always, always another layer of cleverness and intrigue?

Re-fucking-diculous.

>>Is there always, always another layer of cleverness and intrigue?

I swear to you, Crid, that, if anything, I assumed you were going to rebuke me for stating the fucking obvious!

grr