“In 2009, according to these statistics, which come mostly from the OECD, U.S. government entities spent $3,795 per person on health care, compared to $3,100 per person in France. Note that these stats are for government expenditures; they exclude private-sector health spending. If anything, the U.S. figures understate government health spending, because they exclude the $300 billion a year we ‘spend’ through the tax code by making the purchase of employer-sponsored health insurance tax-exempt. So: if we measure by the dollar amount of government involvement in health spending, the French system is actually meaningfully freer.”
