France backs down on access to CMU for inactifs

[cooperlola]

What the EU wants and what the FG does may well be two different things.

I have to say (although it may well make me unpopular!) that I have never understood why the contribution level is where it is (ie CMU), rather than equating to a working French person.  If I were the FG this is what I would have done - taken more money from people rather than sending them away altogether.

[idun]

There lies the rub cooperlola, do you 'know' what the french pay? A french pay slip is often two pages long with all the cotisations, and in fact due to the CSG etc little appears to be for actual health care, even though it is. So wouldn't people be screaming blue murder if they appeared to be paying more than the french?

And who do you compare too, businesses pay quite different amounts? and that is a question  as I don't know really, I'd have to look it up.

[woolybanana]

And I suppose the 8%, if it is that, will be knocked off the social charges we pay?

[cooperlola]

A working member of this forum posted the percentages here once and the healthcare portion of the cotis was certainly higher than the 8% which CMUers pay.  IIRC it was something like 12% but yes, you are right Idun, it does vary.  However, my belief is that CMU is low compared to other caisses as it was originally designed for those residents who had no other healthcare safety net and  the pre-retired non French EU citizens were included for the sake of simplicity.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="woolybanana"]And I suppose the 8%, if it is that, will be knocked off the social charges we pay?[/quote]I discovered this year, quite by chance - on this forum -, that the payments made to CMU can be offset against tax.  However, social charges are payable when you are a la charge of the French system, but they are not payable if you go private or are paid for by the UK.

[Sprogster]

I would wait for verification of any proposed changes, as the only source of this so far is one property news website and it is slightly worrying that this has yet to be independently confirmed elsewhere.

Also just because the EU rules against a policy does not mean that the French will change it anytime soon, as they are notorious for ignoring EU directives.

[idun]

I cannot get the cleiss site up at the moment, as I would have liked to see what they say about current payments.

Did see Cleiss on wiki and France has the highest employers contributions of just about any other state and that is the thing. That is why artisans pay so much because they are often employer and employee. In the olde days anyone needing to pay into the secu had to pay something similar to the equivilent of the employer/employee payments and so those who were say unemployed and their 'right' to health care had run out could not afford to pay in. It was a harsh system and the new one in theory was a marvel, but some aspects of it have been very badly thought out.

I suppose it is how one looks at entitlement too and how it is obtained, if an employer is having to pay out a fortune to the state in cotisations then they have not got the money to pay to their employees. So whichever way it is done, workers are 'paying' one way or another. Just my naieve, perhaps primitive way of looking at things, certainly 8% covers little.

 

[woolybanana]

but they won't get away with charging the inactives expatriates more than french retraité

[BJSLIV]

I guess it will be a combination of

1  Enforcement of the minimum income rules , so as to disbar any claims for the CMU complementaire

and

2 Application of the Style of Life assessments. Someone in a "Totally" other place has mentioned that these have started in their area.

That would put an end to the "Sorry I have little or no Income, don't be mislead by my new Range Rover" approach.

http://www.securite-sociale.fr/comprendre/dossiers/fraude/train_de_vie.htm

I note that a Mercedes A Class qualifies as a luxury car.

[tinabee]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

A working member of this forum posted the percentages here once and the healthcare portion of the cotis was certainly higher than the 8% which CMUers pay.  IIRC it was something like 12% but yes, you are right Idun, it does vary.  However, my belief is that CMU is low compared to other caisses as it was originally designed for those residents who had no other healthcare safety net and  the pre-retired non French EU citizens were included for the sake of simplicity.

[/quote]

Info here on the percentages paid by employers and employees for all cotisations including healthcare

http://www.net-iris.fr/indices-taux/4-cotisations-sociales-taux-et-assiettes-des-charges.php

[NormanH]

[quote user="cooperlola"]

A working member of this forum posted the percentages here once and the healthcare portion of the cotis was certainly higher than the 8% which CMUers pay.  IIRC it was something like 12% but yes, you are right Idun, it does vary.  However, my belief is that CMU is low compared to other caisses as it was originally designed for those residents who had no other healthcare safety net and  the pre-retired non French EU citizens were included for the sake of simplicity.

[/quote]

I genuinely think that they were taken by surprise by the non-French take up.

They had expected a relatively low number of French people (I seem to remember in the region of 200.000), and this explains the measures taken in 2007.

Members of this Forum are understandably British centred, but don't make the mistake of thinking that the FG has the same high priority

in drafting its measures.

Many French people still regard the CMU as being only for the poor (even for the feckless if you listen to the extreme right)

It is best to be tactful when talking about it in some circles.

[woolybanana]

I understand that more and more doctors and specialists are refusing to accept the rates offered by the CMU and are either refusing to cooperate or demanding supplemental fees.

Yes, Norman, you are quite right I think. What you say rings a bell in my mental marsh somewhere.

[cooperlola]

Somewhere I have the original discussion documents and parliamentary reports from the early days of CMU and the drafting of the legislation.  It's a while since I read them (a lot of water under the bridge!) but this is my recollection.  The expat thing was - as you say - a side effect of CMU rather than anything fundamental to its introduction.

At my dentist's there is a notice to the effect that CMU patients need to check in before having treatment.  I've never bothered as my CV works normally anyway. I assume that it's actually aimed at those on CMU-C who don't pay the top-up element and it is in fact this which interests these specialists, thus the CMU-Bers aren't affected and don't affect the medics either in terms of the cut they get.

[5-element]

[quote user="NormanH"]
 
Many French people still regard the CMU as being only for the poor (even for the feckless if you listen to the extreme right)
[/quote]

That is so. Not only that, but it is confusing:  usually the term "la CMU" is used ONLY for CMU-C (complémentaire). Nobody ever talks about "la CMU de base", instead, they might ask you "Vous êtes à la Sécu?" to check if you are in the French healthcare system. If you are asked: "Est-ce que vous avez la CMU?", they mean, always, CMU-C.

I think that in practice, perhaps it is only amongst non-French that one talks about "la CMU de base".

[idun]

I have heard of Drs not wanting CMU patients. It is so sad and I cannot blame GP's really, they get so little and they would have to wait to get this money. I suppose that it could depend on the area the dr worked, in a poor area I daresay it could become very problematic.

I looked at some old pay slips and this is what we paid: employer/employee as a  % of salary JUST for the maladie bit was 16.45% (that includes the CSG etc as it has to be included in all fairnes). The whole thing was quite different before the CSG. Then when we left France, no more CSG etc for us, but in actual fact the cotisations just for maladie employer/employee were up to 18.3% and we were paying a lot euros a month more. To add insult, in the name of solidarity, they were still taking ASSEDIC for unemployment benefit, even though it could not be claimed.

Employers pay total cotisations of  approx 47% of the salary, lot innit, that does include their contribution towards pension schemes.

The CMU was very necessary, it had to happen. I was shocked, I mean really shocked when people on here started talking about the CMU and joining it, I sort of felt like the poor and needy in France had been in some way betrayed and I was disgusted, hard for me to find  words to say how I felt at the time. And then every one jumping on me saying that they were entitled, their 'right'. I had to look it up and could not believe my eyes. Simple old me thinking it was for the poor french who really needed health care.

I was out of the UK for a long time. I had the impression that most of the people who were moving to France from the UK were aise. Moving to odd places that I knew had little work, as the people from there were moving to my region to find jobs. So having taken early retirement would then be living off the fruits of their UK houses where they had made a killing. I knew that they could get E106's if they had been working, but then having retired early and when the E106 ran out, well they'd have to pay as per it was for everyone who had not got any 'rights' in France pre CMU. Didn't seem unreasonable to me.

Not sure if I have ever quite fully understood a lot of this. Obviously the CMU had been a right republican cxxk up! I hope that they get it sorted properly so that the truly poor and needy french get good and proper health care.

[idun]

Just before we left we found lots of doctors wanted depassement d'honoraires. I even had to pay when I was in our local general hospital, rather than a clinic and that surprised me. Our mutualist paid a lot of it, but not all.

[Graham & Brenda]

[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="woolybanana"]And I suppose the 8%, if it is that, will be knocked off the social charges we pay?[/quote]I discovered this year, quite by chance - on this forum -, that the payments made to CMU can be offset against tax.  However, social charges are payable when you are a la charge of the French system, but they are not payable if you go private or are paid for by the UK.[/quote]

Cooperlola, could you  explain or provide a link to  the offsetting CMU payments against tax please? ( Do you mean against French income tax?)

Thanks,

[Chancer]

My Dentist and doctor friends in areas with lots of CMU patients (French not etrangers) are always moaning about it /them, they often dont get paid for treatment because the person is at fin des droites,claims to have forgotten their carte vitale etc, hard to turn someone away when they are in pain and may have been fidele for years, in general my professional friends are by far the hardest working French people that I know yet quite poor by comparison.

I always chuckle when I read postings of people hoping that one day those with swimming pools and Range Rovers will be contrôled, it has already been happening for years to the French claimants, I had to help a mentally retarded guy who was living on a small disability pension and had just been reassesed by the SECU, at least I think that was the organisation, the guy cant read or right and everybody else around here just ignores him or treats him like a dog so he came to me with his letter, basically they were refusing him because they had attributed a value to him living with his mum in the family HLM (he is actually one of the saner ones in the foyer) equivalent to the rent he would otherwise have been paying, this took him over the threshold and Hop! he was out of the system, they did however offer him IIRC €400 pa towards a recognised mutuelle.

Meanwhile the Range Rovers were being changed for newer models. - Plus ça change..................

 

[cooperlola]

I have now communicated with FP.com and they confirm that the news came direct from the EU Commission following a direct enquiry to them.  There is no official statement as yet so the timing is still up in the air.  I will keep you posted as best I can but the source is ultra-reliable  so I think we can take it that it will happen.  When, is another question but note the fact that the Commission has stated that they will be monitoring the FG's progress in implementing (or rather, back-pedalling on) the measures.

[cooperlola]

Graham and Brenda (for some reason I cannot quote you, even if I remove the & from your forum name), see:

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2530842/ShowPost.aspx

[cooperlola]

More here:

http://www.connexionfrance.com/early-retiree-expats-france-state-health-cover-insurance-cmu-europe-circular-12808-view-article.html

I've just spoken to the reporter and he has also spoken direct to the Commission and has heard from the FG (as mentioned in the article) so it seems even more likely that this is true.

[cooperlola]

I have now seen the FG's response and it confirms that a full policy statement will be issued in the summer and will replace the November '07 regulations.  What it doesn't specify is how the rules will be implemented, nor whether the system will be as it was before the current changes were made.

[dexter]

Thanks for all the time you  have spent on this coops.

Dexter

[Chancer]

I have a strange présentiment that this is going to engender some bad press for the new wave of immigrants that will henceforth be able to join the CMU.

Prior and even post its withdrawal the majority of French were completely unaware that early retirees from the UK or other countries were able to profit from the system put in place to reduce hardship for French citizens, but the elections are soon, every side is posturing and picking on the easy targets, the proposal to tax the percieved rich second home owners was well recieved by all but that now has been withdrawn, you can be sure that the opposition will be quick to exploit this apparent weakness on the part of the government.

Once the new measures are announced, (and we should wait and see what they actually pan out to be) if they are as reported I reckon that the opposition will really go to town on the easy target of (percieved) rich early retired foreigners being rewarded by the government, I can imagine articles showing the Range Rovers, probably still UK registered and the swimming pools etc with a comparison against someone like the retarded guy in my village who no longer has CMU cover or any remaining teeth.

I do hope not but it does seem like a win-win situation for the far left.

[BJSLIV]

 do hope not but it does seem like a win-win situation for the far left

I should think the far right might get some mileage out of it. They are non too keen on foreigners of any colour or esoteric religous  persuasion.