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French health care


woolybanana
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[quote user="NormanH"][quote user="EmilyA"]

I completely agree Lou. I can never understand why people don't comment more on the ridiculous bureaucracy of the health system as well. All those separate caisses, IT systems that don't work, lack of use of email, complex systems for payments and refunds. How much money goes on all that? Also I get cross when people have a go at the immigrant early retired paying into the CMU. It is hardly their fault is it, that that is where the system has decreed that they should be? I am all for a minimum charge to the CMU, but I don't see how you can blame people for being put in it in the first place by the French authorities.

 

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But they chose to come to France.

When I came there was no CMU and I had to pay a private health insurance until I worked and earned the right to cover.

I believe that the CMU should exist as it was intended for poor French people, and those who choose to come here as early-retired and 'inactif' ( three choices there) should pay for their choice as we used to do by private insurance.

[/quote]

As I understand it Norman, that is exactly what happens now. Early retired / inactive immigrants are required to have private medical insurance so as not to a charge on the State. Is this not so ( since 2007 I believe ) ?

Your wanting things to be the same as in the past when you became an immigrant is somewhat ''dog-in-a-manger'' in my opinion. Just because something applied to you does not make it cast in stone, life ( and rules / laws ) moves on, sometimes for the better, other times not.
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My point is just that if you have a medical condition like high blood pressure you can't get private health insurance and no matter how much money you might have to pay into the system, you can't move to France, unless you are prepared to go uninsured. That makes me very uncomfortable.

Edited to say that this is not in the same order of awful things as French people not being able to afford health cover in their own country.

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I didn't think that you could legally, 'be prepared to go uninsured' at the moment.

I thought that people were obliged to have full comprehensive health insurance. And this would be counted as part of  having the means to support one's self for the first five years and not being 'à charge' to the french state. Otherwise, one has not right to remain in France. ........ well that is how I read it.

 

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[quote user="EmilyA"]

My point is just that if you have a medical condition like high blood pressure you can't get private health insurance and no matter how much money you might have to pay into the system, you can't move to France, unless you are prepared to go uninsured. That makes me very uncomfortable.

Edited to say that this is not in the same order of awful things as French people not being able to afford health cover in their own country.

[/quote]

Wouldn't this be the case for most of Europe too?  Spain, Italy, Cyprus to think of popular retirement destinations. And if anybody wanted to retire to Florida...

Some times I think that British people have been spoiled by the NHS into thinking that they have the right to health care on the basis of residence anywhere.

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I quite agree that noone should move to France or anywhere else unless they have the means to support themselves. I just don't think people should be prevented from living somewhere because they have a condition that stops them getting private health insurance.
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[quote user="EmilyA"]I quite agree that noone should move to France or anywhere else unless they have the means to support themselves. I just don't think people should be prevented from living somewhere because they have a condition that stops them getting private health insurance.[/quote]A slight paradox there. To me supporting yourself includes being able to take care of your health needs. No one has an absolute right to live in a foreign country so it is reasonable for that country to make sure that immigrants will not be a drain on their resources
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[quote user="EmilyA"]I quite agree that noone should move to France or anywhere else unless they have the means to support themselves. I just don't think people should be prevented from living somewhere because they have a condition that stops them getting private health insurance.[/quote]A slight paradox there. To me supporting yourself includes being able to take care of your health needs. No one has an absolute right to live in a foreign country so it is reasonable for that country to make sure that immigrants will not be a drain on their resources
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[quote user="Alex H"][quote user="Rabbie"]No one has an absolute right to live in a foreign country [/quote]

I think EU citizens do, don't they?

[/quote]I think if you are not working or retired then you have to have adequate health insurance
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[quote user="Alex H"][quote user="Rabbie"]No one has an absolute right to live in a foreign country [/quote]

I think EU citizens do, don't they?

[/quote]

 

No I don't think that they do, look on the service-public.fr web site. No one should move to France if they will be a drain on french ressources in any way, or at least that is how I read it.

 

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I don't understand why you would be a drain on French resources. If you were required to pay in a minimum sum at say 3000€ a year to the CMU would that really be a problem? Yes some people will get ill and cost more, but others won't. Why would you need to discriminate against people who have long-term conditions and can't get PHI?
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I suppose it boils down to what you believe in. I realise that France signed up to europe, but I understand why they wouldn't want to be paying out for people who need extra health care. And I wish that the UK would do the same.

I am really against this idea of a United States of Europe. I am for free trade and a certain amount of mobility, and certainly not an automatic right to move where we want and use the facilities in another country. So I feel France has it right.

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I believe France are in breach of EU disability discrimination legislation with their current rules (Article 13 of the European Treaty, in particular).  I think 'the dwarf' is banking on disabled people being too poor or having too small a voice to challenge the position he has taken.

Mrs R51

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[quote user="EmilyA"]I don't understand why you would be a drain on French resources. If you were required to pay in a minimum sum at say 3000€ a year to the CMU would that really be a problem? Yes some people will get ill and cost more, but others won't. Why would you need to discriminate against people who have long-term conditions and can't get PHI?[/quote]If you don't like French rules about health insurance then don't move to France. I know it seems tough but that's the way it is.
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I have lived in France for some years Rabbie.  I don't like discrimination against people on grounds of ill-health or disibility. I don't like the fact that some French people are excluded from health care because they can't afford to pay.
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Thanks Richard. Yes I think it is amazing that people can't see that one day they might have to take a tablet for high blood pressure so then they can't get PHI and they can't move to another country...

I also think it is amazing that more people are not out fighting to save the NHS (but that is another thread...)

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Isn't this more a problem with Private Insurance than with any particular country?

Mutuelle assurances in France are not allowed to ask about your medical history, so they can't refuse to take you (this is not the case for Life assurance or 'prévoyance')

Perhaps this is where the changes should come in the UK insurance industry.

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[quote user="EmilyA"]I have lived in France for some years Rabbie.  I don't like discrimination against people on grounds of ill-health or disibility. I don't like the fact that some French people are excluded from health care because they can't afford to pay.[/quote]NormanH's answer would suggest this is a problem with UK Health insurance rather than with the French system. I do not like discrimination either, but  IMO a country is entitled to set its own rules for health care etc.
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If you try and emigrate to any other country outside the EU, part of the visa requirement will be a comprehensive medical and if you have any chronic health condition, then forget it. France now imposes a medical requirement on non EU citizens applying for a non working long stay visa popular with non EU retirees.

Unfortunately, someone later in life can easily develop a serious life long medical condition that could cost the health service several hundred thousand pounds over the years to treat and no level of personal social security contribution would go anywhere near compensating for that.

If you have a careers worth of social security contributions behind you then there is a better chance of covering the cost of your health care in later life. However, if you move to France as an early retiree it is far less likely that you will pay your way, as the risk of illness increases with age.
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But even native French people can't afford to use their health service because they are too poor to pay. EmilyA is right, it is a scandal that this situation exists.

The post-war baby boomers are becoming old and more often than not, infirmity comes with old age. There will be more and more who will suffer.

Being a part-timer in France I am not that knowledgeable about the French health service, but the methods of payment seem clumsy and over-bureaucracised  IMO. All the recent changes only seem to have increased the amount of paperwork required. What a waste of precious resources when the main aim should be to deliver healthcare to all French citizens at a reasonable cost and taking earnings into account.

I think NormanH is right. UK insurance company premiums are making it impossible for some British people with existing health conditions to afford healthcare in France.

Doesn't a similar scenario exist in USA?   

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I suppose my problem with this and I have tried to be careful with my remarks.

For me it boils down to, why should any other country be responsible for another countries national who is ill, whether it be the UK, France, Germany etc. I do not believe they are. What I would like is that each country look after their own nationals.

And so we get to the 'right' to just up sticks and move to another country and the unfairness. Well unfair it maybe, but I do firmly believe that there is no 'right' attached to another country taking on the responsibilty for us, why should they. We can call it discrimination, but they have every right to do just that. I am always very pleased that my own country should just about care for me if I become very ill or handicapped.

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I think sometimes people get the wrong idea from the term early-retired. Of course in a few years time this will include people of 65 plus. In actual fact I would guess that the most expensive bit for claims is statistically more likely to be when people are post-retirement age and in receipt of an S1.  

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I think that you are right, especially if people need long-term or palliative care.

Of course if there was a real functioning federal Europe then we wouldn't be having these problems. There would be an unified system, with contributions, however and where ever  they are paid counting towards care  anywhere in Europe.

That is another debate however [6]

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I haven't made it back to this thread for a little while, ironically because I've been up to my neck in work on a translation of a tender for a new HR payroll system, where I have been thunderstruck by the complexities of payments from salary to mutuelles, complementaires, prevoyances.... Ye Gods, no country should be allowed to have THAT many acronyms!

Anyway, I'm saddened, yet heartened to read so many comments suggesting that maybe, just maybe people might want to pay a little more attention to the ills ('scuse the pun) present in the country they've chosen to inhabit. Nowhere is perfect..nowhere.

There are many British people in France who have no clue what they might face going forward, should they have the misfortune to fall victim to a serious illness. For so long, it was all very simple and straightforward to get into "the system". Now it isn't, and taking early retirement at whatever age it happens is no preparation for the potential of a long and (eventually..it happens to us all) increasingly less healthy life...at a COST.

What appalls me (I'm sure this won't go down too well, but hey) is the frequency with which I hear people say "Oh, so-and-so has gone back to England to see the doctor/have an operation/get a tooth seen to". I KNOW that many of the people saying this are self-proclaimed "permanent residents" in France, yet feel no shame when they cherry-pick where they will go for healthcare (and the UK will treat them free, of course, for most things) and even less shame when they then whinge about the level of service the NHS can provide. When they aren't complaining about "health tourism", that is.

Hospitals the world over make mistakes, have Legionnaire's disease outbreaks, let patients wait on trolleys, employ unsympathetic staff.....Yes, even France. But it would be better to be aware of that than to waste energy moaning about a health service that, if you've moved to France, you've supposedly "left behind".

I must admit to seeing an interesting evolution in many people who move to France from the UK. They seem to quickly fall into the trap of believing that "superior healthcare" comes in the form of quantity, as opposed to quality. Listening to conversations among Brits-in-France, it's often more about how MUCH medication they've been given, or how MANY times they're required to go to the doctor...a carrier bag full of pills doesn't necessarily mean you're getting great treatment, it's just the evidence of a system where no-one's made to care too much about overprescribing because, well, you're covered by insurance.

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