France wants health care system more like US while we're trying to do what they've done which doesn't work.

Here's an example of why not to embrace more government health care. What's happening where it exists. Here's a story, "France Fights Universal Care's High Cost" on the problems with French health care which widely touted as the model for where US health should go.

France claims it long ago achieved much of what today's U.S. health-care overhaul is seeking: It covers everyone, and provides what supporters say is high-quality care. But soaring costs are pushing the system into crisis. The result: As Congress fights over whether America should be more like France, the French government is trying to borrow U.S. tactics.

In recent months, France imposed American-style "co-pays" on patients to try to throttle back prescription-drug costs and forced state hospitals to crack down on expenses. "A hospital doesn't need to be money-losing to provide good-quality treatment," President Nicolas Sarkozy thundered in a recent speech to doctors.

And service cuts -- such as the closure of a maternity ward near Ms. Cuccarolo's home -- are prompting complaints from patients, doctors and nurses that care is being rationed. That concern echos worries among some Americans that the U.S. changes could lead to rationing.

The French system's fragile solvency shows how tough it is to provide universal coverage while controlling costs, the professed twin goals of President Barack Obama's proposed overhaul.

In an effort to control costs, bureaucrats are rationing care by deciding who will and won't get services rather than allowing people to make those decides through market forces. Again, government isn't the answer but rather the primary problem in our health care problems.