Sécu, chômage, RMI...

[Clair]

Sécu, chomage, RMI... les fraudeurs traqués (defrauders in the spotlight)

This is the heading under which this article is published today in Le Figaro newspaper.

The last section draws attention to an aspect of expat life which has raised some controversy in the forum in the past.

[quote]CMU, RMI : vérification du train de vie.

Mais les mentalités évoluent lentement. Le sentiment que le laxisme

n'est plus permis progresse, face aux milliards de déficits et au fil

des scandales les plus spectaculaires : trafic de médicaments sur

ordonnances volées, vente de « kits Assedic », déclaration de

quintuplés fictifs dans 17 CAF, rapport recensant 10 000 fraudeurs,

tous organismes sociaux confondus, pour la seule Île-de-France...

Xavier Bertrand a également annoncé hier un amendement au projet de

budget 2007 de la Sécu permettant de vérifier le patrimoine d'un

demandeur de prestation sous condition de ressources, lorsque son train

de vie ne correspond manifestement pas à ses revenus déclarés - comme

le fisc peut déjà le faire.

Il s'agit, par exemple, d'éviter qu'un retraité britannique installé

en France, n'y percevant pas de revenus mais possédant un important

patrimoine immobilier ou financier outre-Manche, ne bénéficie pas de la

CMU ou du RMI.

Un autre amendement prévoira que les personnes s'installant à

l'étranger restituent leur carte Vitale, pour ne plus l'utiliser lors

de courts séjours en France. Pour le gouvernement, cette disposition « aura

en premier lieu une vertu pédagogique sur un grand nombre de personnes

qui n'ont même pas conscience qu'elles ont perdu leurs droits à

l'assurance-maladie » alors qu'elles n'y cotisent plus.[/quote]

CMU, RMI: checks on lifestyle.

... But

mentalities are slowly evolving. The feeling that laxism is no longer acceptable is gaining ground, as the billions Euros deficit and the most

spectacular abuses are revealed: drugs traffic from stolen prescriptions, sales of “Assedic

kits”, declaration of fictitious quintuplets in 17 CAF, report of

10.000 defrauders within the social welfare programs for the Ile-de-France region alone...

Xavier Bertrand (the French Health Minister) also announced yesterday an amendment with the draft budget 2007

of Sécu allowing to check the possessions of any welfare applicant, when his lifestyle is in clear contradiction with his declared income - as the tax department can already do it.

It acts, for

example, to prevent a British pensioner settled in France, not receiving any income in France but owning property or financial holdings on the other

side of the channel, from taking advantage of the CMU or the RMI.

Another amendment

will state that the people settling abroad return their Carte Vitale, to avoid its use during short stays in France. For the government, this provision

“will initially be a learning experience for a great number of people who are not

even aware that they lost their rights to the health insurance” when they no longer contribute to it.

The emphasis in the translation is mine.

Because, of course, this is clearly the fraud most people will object to! Never mind what other nationalities get up to...!

More Brit bashing?

[Will]

I quite agree with it - it makes a mockery of the system when a comparatively wealthy British person, solely through living only off capital and a small amount of interest and/or pension (which makes them appear to the authorities as a low income family) are eligible for French benefits. Many genuinely poor French (and other) families on low incomes cannot get these, because their SMIC-level wage takes them just above thresholds for free health care, and being in work they cannot claim unemployment-related benefits. I'm not saying the British are legally wrong to receive this (morals are a different question altogether), rather that the system has been wrong in allowing it to happen. This of course is a different question from the actual abuse of the RMI etc that was widely reported not so long ago in the Dordogne.

I think this will be a popular move with the French, though not with certain British. I hope, of course, that the British reference was only given as an example - I am sure it will apply to other nationalities as well who take advantage of this system. It's possibly hard on some on genuinely low pension foreigners who happen to own their house, but maybe a way round this can be found.

[Clair]

Whilst I too agree on the principle of the change and, having read of the reported abuses (17  CAF paying out for the same 5 children!!!), welcome its arrival, I do think that singling out the Brits as a specific example in the article is another attempt at Brit bashing.

The RMI abuse reported in the Dordogne quoted many EU nationalities as well as French people, taking advantage of the French welfare system, but most reports focused on the so-called "rich Brits and their 4x4" (my emphasis), quietly letting by the fact that the large majority of abuse was actually done by French people!

That's what I object to. Abuse of the system seems somehow more objectionable to when practiced by a Brit or a foreigner, and less so when practiced by a French person.

[Russethouse]

But the Brits are not totally innocent of doing that in the UK are they ? Easier to point the finger at a foriegner.

 

[andyh4]

Will

as written there is a very simple way round this - unfortunately for the well off as well as those genuinely in need - which would be to have a small investment in France on which one would pay ones dues.

Il s'agit, par exemple, d'éviter qu'un retraité britannique installé en France, n'y percevant pas de revenus mais possédant un important patrimoine immobilier ou financier outre-Manche, ne bénéficie pas de la CMU ou du RMI.

I suspect as always the devil will be in the detail and what is written will not be what the rules say.

[Miki]

I am pretty sure that there is no need to remind many members, that a

few of us on here, sometime ago now (and including TU) said this would

be the eventual outcome of what would happen when the fonctionnaires

finally realised that many people were getting healthcare far too

cheaply. Whilst one could be cash and property rich, the criteria for

the CMU was income related and that therefore let in many of the wrong

people. 

These people, quite legally, due to short sightedness by the Goverment

ministers, were able to slip through the net and thus allow them to get

cheap care, which as many will know, was created for the poor folks

that could not afford healthcare before.

[Miki]

[quote user="andyh4"]

Will

as written there is a very simple way round this - unfortunately for

the well off as well as those genuinely in need - which would be to

have a small investment in France on which one would pay ones dues.

Il s'agit, par exemple, d'éviter qu'un retraité britannique installé en France, n'y percevant pas de revenus mais possédant un important patrimoine immobilier ou financier outre-Manche, ne bénéficie pas de la CMU ou du RMI.

I suspect as always the devil will be in the detail and what is written will not be what the rules say.

[/quote]

Can you elucidate on that Andy,  I don't follow. I understand the French part but not your part, sorry..........

[Will]

Miki - glad it was just not me that didn't quite understand how that would get round the problem. I think that it's having a small income in France, that they can declare to the taxman and that then gives them a low income figure, that has allowed the too-wealthy people to get free healthcare under the CMU etc.

[Chancer]

But surely there must be "wealthy" French people (retirees?) who own large properties/cars but have only a limited income and are living off their savings, what is the difference? - are they prohibited from claiming?

[Russethouse]

 I'm sure you are right J.R, but I suspect human nature, rather than what is actually correct ,means that many French people perceive the other French in that position as having paid in to the system and therefore being more deserving.

[Miki]

[quote user="J.R."]But surely there must be "wealthy" French people

(retirees?) who own large properties/cars but have only a limited

income and are living off their savings, what is the difference? - are

they prohibited from claiming?[/quote]

Gay has it close.

The wealthy people would be, or would have been, paying in to

their own mutuelle or paying through their work (as well as their

employer paying in). If they are retired, then they would qualify for

healthcare from their payments during their working years. They will

naturally want to top it up and that is when they may just qualify for

the complementaire top up through the CMU but it will be heavily

dependant on their earnings from wherever of course. My money is on the wealthy

French making their own arrangements for a top up. The least they

impose themselves on the system, the better they may well prefer it

[;-)]

[verviale]

It is a pity the U.K. do not tighten up on their health services, we seem to provide the whole world with free health care, for those of you not living in the U.K. we have drop in centres now in every town that are open 24 hours a day,anybody can go and see a doctor and nobody pays, I happen to be friendly with the doctors on our university campus and they say anyone who is not an EU student goes there to get free treatment and its amazing how many students outside the EU happen to be pregnant when they arrive in Britain.We are certainly behind the times here in collecting payment for services.No wonder the health service is in the red.We would do well to take a leaf out of the book of the french health service.Pay up front or else.

[Will]

The French may arguably have the best health service, at least according to the World Health Organisation, but its financial state is at least as perilous - possibly even more so - than the NHS. At least the British authorities put the brakes on the NHS with the unpopular cutbacks as a result. They seem to have messed up again with the PFI, but that's a different story altogether.

In France, the health system was not curbed, the bureaucracy ballooned, patients did the rounds of several doctors picking up multiple prescriptions for the same ailment, while the doctors prescribed at least four different tablets for anything. The result was the taxes imposed on everybody under the euphemism 'social contributions' that have been discussed at length here - the CRDS, to pay off the national debt caused by the over-spending health service, and the CSG, a payment to prop up the health service and, hopefully, prevent a repeat. Also such things as the medecin traitant system were introduced, where each patient 'registers' with a doctor à la NHS, and the 1€ non-refunded payment for each consultation. It's not finished; the centralised computer medical records system soon to be introduced promises to make even the major cockups over the NHS IT systems look trivial.

The French health system, like the NHS, has much to commend it, but under the surface it's a rather different story.

I also think that some may disagree with the notion of the universal walk-in nature of the NHS, particularly those who may have moved permanently to France, severing their ties with the National Insurance system, and find that without a CEAM (the French-issued EHIC, or E111 replacement), they are denied free treatment.

 

[andyh4]

[quote user="Will "]Miki - glad it was just not me that didn't quite understand how that would get round the problem. I think that it's having a small income in France, that they can declare to the taxman and that then gives them a low income figure, that has allowed the too-wealthy people to get free healthcare under the CMU etc.[/quote]

 

Essentially Will that's right.  If as stated they will target those with no income (but all the wealthy accoutraments of a wealth ex-pat), then the answer is to get one - no matter how small.

 

[Miki]

Andy,

I think their version of no income would probably be more than

just a small income. They may well be going to target those whose

declared income is so low, it makes it totally impossible to live on.

And although that is in fact a low figure, it will be a sufficient

enough target for the Fonctionaires to work on.

[Russethouse]

Isn't that sort of tax avoidance just what makes ex pats unpopular in some places ?

If you can't afford to move to France without all this finacial jiggery pokery, legal though it may be, perhaps some people need to think again.

Sorry, I know it sounds harsh but think how immigrants who claim every little thing are viewed in Britain, its one thing to fall upon hard times or claim for the ill or infirm if circumstances dictate, another to ' work'  the system.

I'll go and hide now...........

[Clair]

[quote user="Russethouse"]Isn't that sort of tax avoidance just what makes ex pats unpopular in some places ?

If you can't afford to move to France without all this financial jiggery pokery, legal though it may be, perhaps some people need to think again

Sorry, I know it sounds harsh but think how immigrants who claim every little thing are viewed in Britain, its one thing to fall upon hard times or claim for the ill or infirm if circumstances dictate, another to ' work'  the system.

I'll go and hide now...........[/quote]

What makes me cross is for instance, my neighbour, who does work the system.

He's a farmer, 50, divorced, almost grown-up children who live with their mother in the village, he lives with his mother, who looks after him as if he was still her responsability... so he has no houshold bills to pay, apart from his mobile phone and the odd invoice for engrais or tractor repair.

After selling all his cattle 2 years ago, he came to an arrangement to let someone else's cattle graze on his land.

What little time he does spend "working" involves moving the herd from one field to another, with the help of his 80 year-old mother and setting up the electric fence.

He's told me he's "going organic" next year, (this is where the subsidies are.)

He's claiming his "due" for last year's dry weather. He did the same for 2003 and 2004 dry weather.

He had laser surgery last year on both eyes to correct his short-sightedness, but a sympathetic Paris eye doctor said it was cataracts, so he claimed the money back.

He does not work the system, he milks it.

And he tut-tuts at my OH who's just finished his temping job (8 months of night work) and has legitimately registered for unemployement benefit until Manpower or Adecco offer him something else!!

Of course the proposed amendments would not affect him, he's legitimately claiming what the existing system allows him to, but don't tell me that's more morally acceptable...[:@]

[Russethouse]

 I agree Clair, two wrongs don't make a right but no doubt it was politically more expedient to talk about the British in the original article, as you rightly say 'Brit bashing' but from what I have read here over the years, sadly there was some foundation for it.