Conrad cites Germany, France as healthcare models

An influential moderate Democrat raised some eyebrows yesterday when he cited a number of foreign healthcare systems as potential models of effective cost control.

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), who has been skittish about a public option, praised the cost-control models of a number of healthcare systems that are considerably more intrusive than a mere public plan.

"They're not government-run systems in Germany, in Japan, in Switzerland, in France, in Belgium," Conrad said at the Finance Committee's markup of healthcare reform. " All of them contain costs, have universal coverage, have very high quality care and yet are not government-run systems."

Those countries "have high-quality outcomes, in fact higher than ours," Conrad said, citing a book by healthcare policy analyst T.R. Reid.

Some progressives have seized on Conrad's comments to argue that if he likes the models provided by those countries, he should have no problem with a public option.

"Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France and Belgium have a level of government intrusion in their systems that would make the average tea partier retch," wrote the Washington Post's Ezra Klein.

Klein continued:

In France, for instance, the government provides all basic insurance coverage directly. In Germany, insurers aren't permitted to make a profit. In Japan, health insurance is publicly provided, and private insurance is available only to ease co-payments or cover services that the government leaves out. This stuff makes the shackled public plan look downright objectivist.