ABSTRACT
The major challenge facing the United States healthcare community today is to pull the pieces of our system together into a well-integrated network that provides adequate, cost-effective service to all citizens. People in many localities receive inadequate attention, while, in other localities, an abundance of redundancies exist. Some people have excellent insurance. A great many have only partial insurance so that their out-of-pocket costs are extremely high. Physicians can sometimes turn away people in need who might have trouble paying. In the French model, the public and private sectors generally cooperate rather than compete. The law guarantees patients the right to choose their practitioner in the French system. The hospital network includes public hospitals, with the larger, teaching ones usually found in major cities; private for-profit hospitals; and private not-for-profit hospitals. Physicians and other healthcare professionals generally work from their own practices.
