Health Insurance: USA vs France

I came to Paris, in 2014, for one year. My intention was to better my french then to return to Oakland, go to baseball games and continue learning civics. It didn’t happen that way. Within six months, I knew I wanted to stay; one year was not enough. Not only was Paris beautiful, inspiring and exhilarating, I’d never lived in a city before. Cities, I learned, pulse with life. In Paris, no matter the time of day or night, life was happening. People were out on the street, having a drink in cafes, walking for pleasure or transportation, going to a myriad of events available every evening. For me, it was intoxicating. I loved it.

Then we had an election in the US. I found it hard to be there but not be living there. All my friends were in various stages of depression. At the time, no one thought it could get as bad as it has, that democracy is actually at stake. Some friends are inured. It’s impossible to watch from over here in France and not be shocked and outraged. The US, always somewhat imperialist, is now cruel and verging on terrorism. That is as extreme as I’m willing to state. In the back of my mind was always the question ‘What would it take to move here, to cut ties to California?’ Two things always jumped up. The first was health insurance. The second was home ownership. The wisdom says don’t sell your home in California unless you are 100% sure you never want to move back. I couldn’t afford my own home if I had to buy it.

Health Insurance: I’m 72 years old. I have Medicare and also a secondary insurance. Until recently I didn’t know if I was eligible to get French insurance. The french system may be the envy of the world. It is a single payer plan. A citizen gets a social security number and then applies for the Carte Vitale. With the carte vitale, every time one goes to the doctor, any kind of doctor, at the end of the visit, you hand your card to the doctor. Then you pay your co-pay. The doctor is paid the rest by the government. Some of my friends have a secondary insurance, which is not expensive in US terms, so as to cover any unforeseen problems. And french medicine is NOT expensive compared to the US. When I had my right hip replaced in February of 2017, I received a statement telling me how much the operation, lead-up appointments and post-op appts cost and what percentage of that Medicare paid. The grand total was $65,000. For the sake of personal information, I googled the price of hip replacement in Paris and the average cost was $8,000-$10,000. Same operation, same skill set, same medicine. It’s one thing to know that there is something very wrong with the American system, it’s another to have the numbers. I once ran out of an over-the-counter stomach aid while in Oakland. It had to be prescribed and my co-payment was higher than I paid over the counter here in Paris.

For five of the six years that I have been in Paris, not knowing what to do about health insurance has kept me from committing to moving here. Last fall, I learned that Macron had decreed that anyone who has lived here more than three months is eligible to apply for french health insurance. As with many things that require dealing with the french administration, I felt paralyzed to take action. Friends offered to help. One sent me the web address to get more info. Another actually translated into English what I needed to do and what I needed to produce, document wise, to get my social security #. Then I finally found someone who would go with me to the office. I needed my hand held. We set up a date and ….. the office had moved two years before. There was no longer an office in my arrondissement. My friend is married to a frenchman who writes beautiful french just the way administrators like. He wrote a letter to be signed by me applying for both the number and the Carte Vitale. Yesterday morning, I sent it registered mail. So now I wait.

https://www.expatica.com/fr/healthcare/healthcare-basics/guide-to-health-insurance-in-france-108848

This is not a political post. All the above raises all sorts of questions (that most of us already know the answers to) about why certain American politicians don’t want to make insurance affordable to 50% of the country. That’s not my fight this week. My fight is to grow old with insurance and the best quality of life I can have. I think the quality of my life is far better here in France. I would like to take the actions necessary to commit to living here. I may not hear anything for a year. Such is the snail’s pace of french administration (especially now when they are stepping up their efforts to help the British who live here, get residency cards, get their drivers license, etc). I have taken the action and it is very satisfying.

My next action is to get a French Driver’s License. Much, much harder than in the US.

A bientôt,

Sara