A median US household receives employer subsidized health care. In many cases, those plans are high-deductible and thus inadequate, because it could still mean having personal expenses to the tune of $7000-8000 a year of post-tax dollars.

This is also being done at the expense of those who are not eligible for subsidies on the Health Care marketplace, but do not receive employer subsidized health care.

I have several "median US household" friends who nearly got homeless after a health incident which would be irrelevant to treat in France (one got hit by a bullet by a gang while mowing his lawn in some BS initiation thing and had to spent a month or so in the hospital, the other got a mild treatable cancer), and that's with 2 people working relatively cushy jobs...

The median person never runs into a life- or employment-threatening health issue during their working life. If you happen to get unlucky, the French system is no doubt better. But for everyone else, they have more money in their pocket.

That's definitely a trade-off. How much do you value the security versus the increased consumption possible with more money. But it is a trade-off. It's not some irrational choice that Americans made that doesn't yield a tangible upside for them.

>The median person never runs into a life- or employment-threatening health issue during their working life.

The median person might not, but for "employment-threatening health issue" a quite big percentage of people get into them, and for life threatening ones a large enough percentage to matter (I'd say 10% or more easily, due to cancer and heart attacks alone).

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletter-art...

And of course the key words here are "during their working life". If we imagine that until 60-65 or so, this has been extended by people unable to get pension in a reasonable age or with savings eaten by health and such issues and forced to come back into working life.