Word: french
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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France's state-run health insurance scheme reimburses 60% to 70% of most medical bills. The remaining costs are assumed by the patient. More than 90% of French citizens pay for supplementary health insurance to cover these costs - mostly from state-run providers called mutuals. But those who can afford it are increasingly abandoning mutuals in favor of private insurance. For most ailments, that makes little difference: 80% of France's general practitioners work under a regime that caps how much they can charge. But the reverse is true for specialists and surgeons - 80% of them set their own fees...
...others say that what's exemplary about France's system is that it has managed to foster patient choice while continuing to provide a generally high level of care for even the most vulnerable. All French citizens have affordable access to a doctor, thanks in part to one of the highest rates of doctors per capita in the world (3.4 per 1,000, compared to 2.4 in the U.S. and 2.5 in Britain). A sick French citizen who stays inside the public funding system might not get to choose from a list of specialists, but he or she will...
France shows how a health-care system might realistically function in the face of daunting 21st century challenges: find a way to take care of your middle class and poor, and let the rich top up care as they see fit. As Rua puts it: "The [French] system ensures quality treatment for everyone, but it isn't there to eliminate the realities that exist in every country - and in every professional and economic sector - that give the more affluent a wider variety of choices, and the ability to seek élite care." With reporting by Bruce Crumley / Paris and Stephanie...
...last year's top-grossing film, The Dark Knight, either. That's Pixar for you. Unlike its rival, DreamWorks, the studio doesn't sell its movies with star voices. And the films' plots? At a typical Hollywood pitch meeting, the story of a rat let loose in a French restaurant (Ratatouille, 2007) or a lonely robot trash collector (last year's WALL-E) or, this time, a cranky old guy who won't leave his house would be greeted by stony silence. Even the crickets would walk out. Somehow, though, people know that a Pixar movie is worth seeing, worth...
...flawed, so is the content. The Parliament is often seen as a retirement home for washed-up national politicians. Its debates often drift towards a pomposity that is only amplified by translation into 23 official languages. The body's monthly commute from Brussels to Strasbourg, a nonsensical legacy of French pride, merely reinforces suspicions that MEPs spend lots of money to scant effect. (Read: "Brussels Beats Up On Bulgaria...