Is that an appropriate comparison?
If I pay my insurer $X in premiums, and they pay $X for health care, is that 2*$X GDP , vs if the government collects taxes (not GDP) and then pays $X for my healthcare?
Okay, but France is not known for its stellar economy or the prosperity of its people. Over here, at least, France is known for its stifling amount of government control when it comes to anything economic. It’s possible these things are related. (Just sayin’!)
Stellar compared to what? Anomalies like the US? Petrostates like Norway or Saudi Arabia?
By world standards France is doing fine.
The comment was a criticism of the US as compared to France. So you can’t write off the US as an anomaly because that comparison was the whole point!
The US is a large political entity and comparing it to France isn't fair. A better comparison is to the entire EU, both in terms of population and ecomomy. Where there's France there's states like Georgia which are neither the best nor the worst.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.TOTL.ZS?end=2014...
Come here in France and appreciate that you can go to the ER for ANYTHING (went 4 times last year for my kids because of bad cough and head injury), and not pay a dime. And they have the same kind of infrastructure to maintain here too, CT scanners, emergency rooms, surgeons and all.
You cannot tell people that the guy is hallucinating hidden costs. It is the health system that is hallucinating these costs. It is a race to the top of who is going to charge the most.