Beyond these impending crises, American and French health care systems share several fundamental principles. Nonetheless, a World Health Organization report published in 2001 found that France has the best overall health care system among the 191 countries surveyed while the U.S. ranked 37th behind virtually all European countries as well as Morocco, Oman, and Costa Rica. Several factors explain the differences in the rankings of France and the United States. The most prominent factor was the large number of Americans whose access to care is limited because of their lack of health insurance—estimates range between 39 and 43 million. Despite this lack of coverage, America still spends far and away the most on its health care system at 13.7% of GDP while France spends 9.8%, placing it in the fourth position.
The WHO rankings, however, do not mean that the French system is unequivocally superior to the American. In fact, both systems could profit from an understanding of the other's strengths. Toward that end, this analysis paper compares the health care systems of both countries and assesses how they can learn from each other in order to deal with their impending health care crises.