Health care & Vocationally Retired U.65

[Chancer]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

Any notion that the five year period is 'more theoretical than magic' and that the CPAMs are going to ignore the law is pure fantasy.  

[/quote]

Well what did you expect from a "fantascist plonker" (copyright R.A. 2009) ? [:P]

Joking apart the law didnt change did it? I thought that they just eventually saw reason after coming under pressure from Cooperola and others.

Annie, I like your order of priorities with internet coming before all those other tedious things! [:)]

[NormanH]

[quote user="cooperlola"]Well, Annie, I am on your side, but let's not kid ourselves - it is France which has decided to interpret EU law in such a way that newcomers cannot contribute or benefit from the local health system during such time as any E-form they have has expired, and their reaching UK state retirement age and /or having lived here for 5 years.  It was neither a European decision, nor a British one.  When I was working on this during the introduction of the new rules, many leftie French MPs and MEPs agreed with you and thought this shouldn't be happening, but it's part of the price one pays for moving countries - you accept local rules and cannot vote to change them unless, again after 5 years, you seek citizenship of your adopted country.[/quote]

The same old muddled line.

'Newcomers' can contribute and benefit in a number of ways, by working, running  business, or by freelance working.

What they can,'t do any more is sit on their backsides and just buy into a system of which they have never paid the capital costs  over the years.

The French authorities are simply closing a loophole in the CMU, which was set up by a socialist government in 2000 to allow the very poor who had no health care previously to have access.

The particular loophole was to allow other French people who by various rare circumstances hadn't been in the mainstream system to get into it by paying contributions.

It certainly wasn't intended for idle asset-rich foreigners

 Those of us here before 2000 will remember paying PHI.

As for the '5 year rule' it doesn't say that after 5 years a EU national can have access to the Health system.

It says that after 5 years EU nationals should have the same rights as French nationals.

If the CMU were restricted to the CMU C (only for the very poor) it would not be available either to French or EU nationals who were over the limits.

There is nothing to say that this will happen at the moment, but it would be wrong to suppose the 5 years residence automatically will mean access to the CMU in the future.

[annie]

Oh to be idle and asset-rich?

I'll just have to settle for idle. x

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="NormanH"]
The same old muddled line.
'Newcomers' can contribute and benefit in a number of ways, by working, running  business, or by freelance working.
What they can,'t do any more is sit on their backsides and just buy into a system of which they have never paid the capital costs  over the years.

[/quote]

A bit late in coming, but here it is.....[;-)]

 

 

 

[Boiling a frog]

Maybe someone can answer this question.

French gendarmes and Police retire at the age of  55 I believe, French train drivers retire at the age of 52 ,both compulsory.

Does the French system give them an E121 if they chose to move to Spain or any other EU country, ?

 

[Will]

No, they are below state retirement age.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="Will"]No, they are below state retirement age.

[/quote]Which is a d*mned shame because otherwise I wouldn't have to contibute thousands of euros a year to the French healthcare system out of my railway pension.

Norman, I admit I should have specified non-working newcomers but it is tough to summarise a very complicated subject in a short paragraph.  I just don't always have the time to go into every detail when responding to these posts.  However, I will amend my original post just in case anybody got the wrong end of the stick.

[bigears]

Inactive early retirees have effectively been stopped from coming to live permanently in france without working.  Keep a property in the uk, buy a maison secondaire in france and enjoy the good life.  Make sure you travel back to the uk regularly on those nice cheap flights,  its a good idea to see friends and relations. 

[annie]

[quote user="Boiling a frog"]

Maybe someone can answer this question.

French gendarmes and Police retire at the age of  55 I believe, French train drivers retire at the age of 52 ,both compulsory.

Does the French system give them an E121 if they chose to move to Spain or any other EU country, ?

 

[/quote]

But if they buy or rent a property in the UK to live in on a permanent basis, they qualify as residents.

[ebaynut]

So to reverse Normans sentence,

 

What they CAN do is sit on their backsides and DON'T even have to buy into a  system of which they have never paid the capital costs over the years.

They can just join for free.

That's the great thing about the E.U rules, the fairness and equal treatment of all its members. [Www]

[annie]

You could say the french in the UK are swapping their contributions for ours..but of course we can't say that anymore as the posts were moved and UK now score own goals.  Right or wrong, we have to pay if we choose to move. We all choose (but it's ok to gripe now and again, makes us all feel better doesn't it?) 

[bigears]

In my view its GB that is the problem in such a debate, the nhs system should have some more stringent qualifying rules, rather than being open to all comers.  Things will change. 

[parsnips]

Hi,

      I have to say I agree with some of what Norman said.

I come here as a retired Fire Officer (under 60) in 1993. At that time France was sticking to the European rules on residency and health provision. There was no CMU for anybody, including very poor french nationals who relied on charity. We had to provide proof of sufficient income and adequate full private health insurance(once our E106s ran out).

     About 2000 the CMU was created specifically for those french nationals who had no health cover through their work. This was a french initiative and nothing to do with Brussels.

The socialist government at that time (a time of growth and increasing tax receipts) thought it would be a good idea to extend the CMU to all EU citizens living in France and not other- wise covered . For those who could afford it a contribution based on income was introduced (because it was originally targeted at the poor, many health professionals at the time  were wary of all CMU members , including wealthy ex-pats who were paying quite a lot in contributions).All this was a french (socialist) initiative.

   When Sarkozy was elected at a time of swelling deficit (all the surplus having been squandered on the 35 hour week and CMU and other socialist schemes), his government looked for savings, and when they found that they were exceeding EU requirements by providing cheap or free cover to non-french "inactifs", decided to revert to the european base position.

   That is where we are now; much of the distress ,at the time of the change, was caused by the insensitive and disorganised way it was done , and the initial lack of knowledge, interest and action from the UK government. 

[parsnips]

[quote user="annie"][quote user="Boiling a frog"]

Maybe someone can answer this question.

French gendarmes and Police retire at the age of  55 I believe, French train drivers retire at the age of 52 ,both compulsory.

Does the French system give them an E121 if they chose to move to Spain or any other EU country, ?

 

[/quote]

But if they buy or rent a property in the UK to live in on a permanent basis, they qualify as residents.

[/quote]

Hi,

     I have had correspondence from the UK government which points out that whereas France  has a contributions based health system, the UK has a residence-based system.That is why ex-pat nonactifs under retirement age in France cannot get state cover, and new EU immigrants into the UK can. It is not generally known but it used to be  possible to buy into the french system as a private subscriber( and possibly still is ) but the subscription was (and possibly still is) exorbitantly expensive.

[Will]

As parsnips says, the NHS is a residence-based system. Contrary to tabloid press reports, becoming a resident in UK who qualifies for NHS treatment (and other benefits) is far from easy; you have to have a job, or to be able to prove that you have other sustainable means of support.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/ukresidency/eligibility/

In fact the 'not be a burden on the state' and the five-year residency qualifications apply in UK just as they do in France, both being based on the same European law.

http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/eucitizens/rightsandresponsibilites/

As far as the French health service goes, one of the big (and continuing) problems is the way that costs spiralled out of control, particularly after the introduction of CMU. To redress that balance, the government introduced measures like the franchises and the medicin traitant, which have made a tiny difference, and the CSG/CRDS, which have made a bigger difference by paying off some of the large debts and establishing a fund to cushion against further debts. But the cost of the health system in France is still astronomical - and because of the fragmented way it is funded and administered, by a combination of government and private health assurance funds, it is very difficult to get an overall true picture.