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written by MikeP , 14 June 2009

"Delivery is promised within 15 days."

Believe it or not, I 'phoned for ours on a Friday and they arrived the following Saturday. I called the English helpline number mainly in order to see if it really worked, and it did!

For once I can say well done to something related to French administration. That said, it's only a piece of plastic and it's cost me few thousand Euros so far just this year to get it.

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written by Mike Meade , 14 June 2009

My experience was similar to yours. I got my card within a couple of days. Do I read into your post that you think French "Sécu" is overpriced?

I've done my calculating many times over the years and when I look at the quality care we normally get in France (there are exceptional and unfortunate cases but they're not the rule), I reckon that the French system is one of the cheapest in the world. Maybe even the cheapest of any.

What riles some anglo-saxons is that they don't like anything that's obligatory and the French think that quality health care should be, whatever the cost.

Have a look at lifelong French standard care for a family in England or America (both of which spend more on health care per capita than France does with far less happy results) and get out your calculator. I've never found anywhere cheaper than France.

BTW, I'm in the UK as I write this and I've just heard from a friend here who had to wait several days to get an MRI for a suspected stroke and who has to now wait "a couple of weeks" for the result. He could be dead by then.

In my experience in France the whole thing, including diagnosis, would be finished with a few hours of his doctor sending him in for the scan. Probably all done the same day.

Putting a price on a healthy life -- or even a life at all -- isn't difficult. Either we are willing to play Russian Roulette with our family's future or we're willing to pay to minimise the health risks to ourselves and those close to us.

For me, it's a no-brainer.

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written by MikeP , 15 June 2009

I'm sceptical of calculations of this nature. If I were to base them on the reality that since I've worked in France as an employee the SS has cost me 22% of my salary, and my average spend has been perhaps ?300 a year, then it's a no-brainer with me as the loser. I'm ignoring the pension aspect of what I might get back aged 65 because it's firstly paltry and second questionable if I'll get anything. Now my contributions are even higher and frankly I regard many of these organisations to whom I'm forced to pay money as parasitic.

If I calculate that should I have a serious accident or illness, and will probably get excellent treatment, then I regard my contribution as insurance, it's also a no-brainer, because I'd get my last 10 years' contributions back in one shot -unless I were dead, in which case the State wins.

Somewhere between those two extremes lies what I would like to see. A flexible system whereby one has the choice of paying for 'catastrophe' cover but acting as one's own insurer for coughs, colds, glasses, ingrown toenails, and the odd filling.

As it is I'm subsiding :

- people who have large families and whose input (if any) to the system is substantially less than what they get out of it.

- I'm subsidising the hypochondriacs who run to the doctor every time they wake up with a 'crise de foie' or an 'angine' (sore throat to you and me) and get an 'arret de travail' for a week and 5 kilos of medicine.

- I'm subsidising an army of state employees, quangos, and organisations with meaningless acronyms whose activities are totally disjointed even within their own departments, let alone between each other.

You are right, we shouldn't play Russian roulette with our health, and our contributions are insurance, but I can choose the level of insurance I want for my car and my house, over the legal minima, so why not my health?

Certainly I can criticise the system in the UK. A friend of mine who's in his 60's, and thus at risk, had a suspected prostate problem, waited 6 weeks for an appointment with a specialist, during which period he moved a mile down the road, putting him into another area, losing his 'slot', and had to wait another 6 weeks for an appointment with a specialist in his new area. During this time the problem could have gone from benign and treatable to fatal. This compares very unfavourably with what what almost certainly have been the case in France.

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written by Mike Meade , 15 June 2009

To answer fully I have to drift somewhat off the topic of the EHIC card.

Have done so at great length here:

French health care system. Cheaper and better than most? Yup!