Healthcare Trends Around The World (SLIDESHOW)

The one thing Democrats and Republicans can agree on when discussing healthcare is that the current U.S. system is not working. Forty-five million Americans are without health insurance, an anomaly when compared to their European and Asian counterparts. President Barack Obama had wanted a comprehensive bill on a new domestic healthcare system on his desk for signing by October, but acknowledging the fractious environment, extended his deadline to the end of the year. What the White House and Democrats are proposing does not resemble the healthcare systems in other countries. The Huffington Post selected seven countries with their own individual systems.

Slideshow sources: NPR, The New York Times, Health Canada, WHO, National Policy Analysis, The Boston Globe

Everyone in France has health insurance and like the United States, people rely on both private insurance and government insurance. The French system is particularly generous to cancer patients, guaranteeing that every cancer patient can get any drug, including the most expensive and even experimental ones. In France, the sicker you are, the more coverage you get. For people with one of 30 long-term and expensive illnesses — such as diabetes, mental illness and cancer — the government picks up 100% of their healthcare costs, including surgeries, therapies and drugs. France has been rated the best among industrialized nations at preventing avoidable deaths. The national insurance program is funded mostly by payroll and income taxes.

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