Les dysfonctionnements du système de soins français. À propos des ouvrages de Jean de Kervasdoué et Claude Le Pen

Claude Béraud reviews two recent books on the (dis)organization and malfunctioning of the “health care” system in France: Santé: pour une révolution sans réforme by Jean de Kervasdoué is mainly concerned with the faults and operational problems in the system; in Les Habits neufs d’Hippocrate: du médecin artisan au médecin ingénieur, Claude Le Pen discusses the necessary but still barely perceptible shift in doctors’ behaviour towards a rational and scientific approach to medicine.
In the course of his review, Claude Béraud stresses three key phenomena which he feels have not been adequately covered by either author: the poor performance of Western health care systems; the myth that an individual’s health depends exclusively upon medical care (whereas it in fact depends on many other exogenous factors); and the lack of a well-structured health care system in France.
He then discusses the privatization of health insurance, analysing and commenting upon the authors’ arguments: Claude Le Pen is in favour of privatization, Jean de Kervasdoué is against it. Finally, contrary to these two writers, who believe that rationing of treatment is inevitable, Claude Béraud argues that if there were better checks on health care expenditures, rationing could be avoided.