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Will You Still Be Covered By The Health System In France?

By: Nick Dowlatshahi

Changes were made to the Health System in France in September regarding non-working expats. The new measures limit the rights of these foreigners to free health care who have not yet reached pensionable age and do not work in France. The new rules apply to all foreigners and not just the British. Effectively the new French President Nicholas Sarkozy's stance is that if you want to retire in your 40's or 50's that's fine but don't expect the French state to pay for it.

The change concerns Britons who have retired to France, are not working, and are not yet old enough to receive a UK pension, which represents around 6,000 people.

Until now British expats were allowed to pay contributions (8% of their income) in order to get treatment through the French health-care system via the Couverture Medicale Universelle(CMU) but most of them previously covered by the NHS took up French residence before retirement age and benefited from France's healthcare system without even paying for it. This of course is unfair as France should not have to foot the bill of early retirees just because they were benevolent enough to do so in the past.

There is a similar situation for these early retired expats on low incomes who won't be able to claim free health insurance via the CMU anymore or for those who have reached UK retirement age but do not qualify for a UK pension.

For all those expats insured via the CMU, the French authorities will give them until end of March 2008 to find private health insurance. However these changes won't affect retired people receiving a state pension from the UK. They will keep their health insurance in France via form E121.

In the short term, new arrivals in France don't need to worry as they can be covered for up to 2 years by using the E106 form- this cost being met by the UK government. In the long term however these people will have to take out their own private health insurance. Cover starts at around 1800 Euros per year for a healthy 60 year old requiring only basic cover and who is willing to pay a top-up himself for certain treatments. If the same person requires full cover then the cost of insurance will be around 2700 Euros per year which when you compare it to the cost of private medical cover in the UK is actually still very reasonable.

Expats who are employed, self-employed or who are living with or married to a French person are unaffected. It is the same for those who are living with or married to a person in possession of an E121 or E106 form.

The French government points out that, as laid down in EU Directive 2004/38, it does not have any obligation to pay the health-care costs of non French EU nationals who have never worked in the country, and nor does it have any obligation to let them pay to join the French health-care insurance system via the CMU. France must reduce its deficit as it has the highest public spending within the EU and cutting out the spending on immigrants that do not contribute to the French economy is one way of doing this.

There are however a good number of people who come to France who are disabled or with serious conditions who may be denied free treatment. The negative publicity from this may encourage the French authorities to re-think this attitide to those specific groups of people. And there is a possibility they will allow expats taking early retirement in France to continue paying their health insurance contributions via the CMU. We will not know for sure until the beginning of 2008 when the final laws have been passed and will update you as soon as we hear about it.

Article Source: http://www.healthandwellnesscentral.com

Niclas Dowlatshahi is the managing director of Leapfrog Properties who are French Property agents specialising in sales across France. www.leapfrog-properties.com


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