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How the French health care system works. France comes in first and the USA 37th in aWHO health care ranking. THe difference in deaths from respiratory disease is half that in the USA, and lower rates of death from heart disease and diabetes. IT has more hospital beds and doctors per capita than the USA. 65% of French people are satisfied with their health system compared to 40% in the USA, and yet France spends 10.7% of GDP on health care and the USA spends 16% for poorer results. THe French system is more generous to its seniors. Unlike Medicare there are no deductibles, just modest co-payments that are often dismissed for chronically ill. And diabetes and critical surgeries are covered 100%. French also buy supplemental insurance like Medigap for extra expenses like dental and eyglasses. Cancer patients are treated free of charge. Avastin treatments costing $48,000 a year are provided at no charge. France's PMI or Protection Maternelle et Infantile, is rated highly. It is anetwork of thousands of healthcare facilities, that ensure that every mother and child in the country receives basic preventive care. Mothers even receive afinancial incentive for attending their pre and post natal visits. France makes this care affordable by reibursing doctors at a much lower rate. The average yearly net income for doctors is around $55,000, about athird of what doctors in the USA make. But French doctors don't have to pay back huge student loans as medical school is paid for by the state and malpractice insurance premiums are only a tiny fraction of that in the USA. And again the French government pays two thirds of the social security tax for most French physicians- which is typically 40% of income. So the $55,000, is more like $92,000 taking that into account and more like $110,000 when student loans and malpractice is taken into account at US levels. Specialists who have 4 or more years experience can charge what they want, but as one gastroenterologist says, there in an unspoken and undefined limit to what you can cahrge or what is socially acceptable. Yet even in France there is inflation in health care costs that the government deals with through price controls and more spending. The French national insurance system is running increased deficits each year and this is now $13.5 billion, and it has led to higher taxes for employers and workers. ...

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The EU's competition commissioner to crackdown on pharmaceutical companies that are delaying the entry of generics drugs with various tactics that are anticompetitive. EU has raided the offices of several marge drug companies and retrieved documents that show this activity was going on. About 5% of medical bills or 3 billion euros coud have been saved from 2000 to 2007, if companies had allowed generics to enter the market earlier and not resorted to these antitcompeitive strategies. Like paying off generics companies or having so many patents on the ingredients of the drug, in one case 1300 patents on one single drug, and then suing the generics companies to tie up the case in the courts.

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Faces of the U.S. unemployment, foreclosure and housing crisis in Hagerstown, Maryland, in 2011.

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Preident Karzai of Afghanistan joins the three way peace talks of the U.S. and Afghanistan's government with the Taliban, with the cooperation of Pakistan.

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Herbert cites figures from the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston which divides households into 10 groups based on annual household income at looks at unemployment levels in eachfot 4th quarter 2009. The highest group with incomes of larger than $150,000 had unemployment of 3.2%, the next group at $100,000 to $149,999 at 4%, households earning $60,000 to $75,000 had jobless rate of 6.4%, with $50,000 to $59,000 a 7.8% jobless rate. Its only when you get $40,000 to $49,000 that you see jobless rates of 9%, that is close to the national average. The worst pain is in the lower middle class groups with the 7.8% and 9% unemployment and in the income groups of $12,500 to $20,000 which have 19.1% unemployment. For workers at the bottom the unemployment rate is 31%! The workers in service industries, such as food preparers, building cleaners, less educated, high school dropouts, blue collar workers, workers in the construction industry, many blacks and Hispanics, are all hard hit. This also gives some idea why the jobless situation does not cause the same anguish in the media coverage as most of it is concentrated among young people, immigrants, illegal immigrants, Hispanics, minorities, and in service and construction industry type occupations. This creates a fragile situation from a social cohesion perspective especially as the lower middle class is also in the same situation and this combined with the working class blue collar and service and construction workers is a large segmet of society....

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Francesco Gurrerera, Money and Investing Editor for the WSJ points to the risks in the U.S. and global economy in April 2012- overdependence on the U.S. Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank, not enough "de-leveraging" of financial institutions after the 2008 global crisis, and the increasing risk associated with individual investors and businesses investing in risky securities in search of yield in a low-interest rate environment.

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Arne Duncan describes the improvements in K-12 education in two regions of the U.S.- the District of Columbia and Tennessee between 2011 and 2013, shown by the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The hard work of educators, parents and school officials is paying off and offers examples for other parts of the country, says Duncan. Lessons include facing the facts, not dumbing down by setting low standards. With higher standards Tennessee students were only 34% proficient in math and 45% in reading compared to the 91-92% with lower standards. Republicans followed up on the work of Democrats in the state. Soliciting feedback from critics and experts- the feedback was used to improve systems and learning to help teachers and students. Schools chancellor Kaya Henderson says improving teacher quality was critical, and so was academic rigor. Still Duncan says more needs to be done, this only shows the right direction for states lagging behind, and one should not get complacent. The other areas college enrollment and dropout rates need to be followed carefully. International PISA results still show the U.S. at 27th in math and 14th in reading of 65 countries- making this only the beginning in setting the future course for U.S. educational improvements....

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Britain's Tax Service reports the number of taxpayers reporting incomes of 1 million pounds a year declined by over 60% in fiscal 2010-2011 from the prior year. In 2010 the Labor government of Gordon Brown introduced a 50% income tax rate for this income group, up from 40%. The number of million dollar incomes filed declined to 6000 from 16000 in 2009-2010, and revenues declined from 13.4 billion pounds or 9% of total taxes from taxpayers to 6.5 billion pounds or 4.4% or about half. The Labor government had hoped for additional 2.5 billion pounds in revenue, showig unintended consequences and surprises in economic policies.

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Afghan warlord of a previous era Hekmatyar is proving difficult to buyout or win over, a strategy pursued with Iraqi insurgents. Younger Taliban insurgents are even harder to convert or buyout. THis raises questions about the chances of this kind of effort succeeding in Afghanistan, especially considering the "allergy" to foreign presence or foreign boots on the ground among Afghan people and the part religious fervour plays. Religious fervour was much less of a factor with Iraqi Sunni insurgents. Add to this the terrain differences, between desert and high mountains, makin the kind of house to house searches and securing of areas extremely difficult.

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U.S. Treasury Secretary Geithner says Republicans are working to thwart the Dodd-Frank legislation- by slowing down and diluting the impact of rules required to be written under Dodd-Frank, crimping the resources of regulatory agencies, and blocking the nominations of heads of regulatory agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

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A new study by the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation shows partisan politics will affect the new president in the U.S. in 2013, to the point of making it difficult to govern.

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Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of U.S. News and World Report, looks behind the unemployment numbers and points to U-6 the real measure of under utilized labor and of workers working part time because of a lack of full time work, and says this is at about 15%. Add the eight million who quit looking and it is 19%, says Zuckerman The unemployment rate of 8.1% does not reflect the eight million workers who have quit looking. The long term unemployed, workers unemployed for more than 27 weeks is at 40.7%, or 5.2 million workers. Fewer Americans work today than in 2000, even though the population has increased by 31 million. Only 96,000 jobs were generated in August 2012. Something is seriously wrong and the right steps have not been taken.

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The Afghan government says the U.S. helicopters took off from Jalalabad 170 miles away. But this cannot be verified as the helicopters would have to go through Pakistani airspace.