I spent 10 months in Boston for work. During a day at work, I got really sick, it turned out that I was having an attack of appendicitis and that I had to be operate. The operation went well, much less the final bill! 80k without ambulance! Fortunately, I had medical insurance from my employer in France which covered any medical expenses I might have in the United States. This insurance cost me 30 euros per month (30 euros more was paid by my employer). 80k for a day in the hospital and appendicitis!? Really??
@@xxDrain Not just insane, I actually think it's horrific, appalling and horrendous - assuming you are talking about the 80K charge for a simple operation and one day in hospital !!! ??? And WITHOUT an ambulance either - DUH!
I had that condition when I was 10... and it's often genetically inherited... imagine every generation getting a bill like that before even starting to make money. And it's life threatening if not treated... would really suck to be uninsured in the US... there's not much of a choice when it's your kid is in danger.
Dear USA, as long as you insist of getting stucked on the ”socialist” or ”communist” medicine, you’re on your own. Fun fact: in Europe public health is viewed the same way as the police or the military. No one in their right mind would consider to have a privately paid police force (or, could that be like a business possibility?). It is a mystery that you insist of paying the most to get the least.
The US mentality about healthcare and taxes is crazy. I've read or watched stuff about differences between healthcare, a lot, and when it comes to this, they always comes up with the same excuses : "Why would I pay more taxes to pay for someone else's healthcare ?". Yeah, we gey it. In the legend, USA is the country of the Self-made Man (or woman). People come here to achieve their dreams and they made it themselves. The mentality is so self-centered, from the outside it looks like empathy is something that almost don't exist at all. You payed stupid taxes on so many things. You pay astronomical tips because restaurants and such don't even pay enough their workers. But you'd refuse a system in which you pay to actually helps people who have no luck in life ? Anyone can have a need for healthcare, at any point. Disease, car accident, broken bones, organs troubles, whatever the fuck can happen. And if that happens to you, you'd be damn happy to pay nothing, or very little. I fins it crazy to spend couples hundreds $ for a ambulance ride. I'm damn glad I pay so that people who are having their worst time in their life can actually think about getting better instead of worrying about how their whole life is ruined because of an unfortunate moment. That's empathy and not some american egocentrical shit
@@souillonsousion8687 Besides, all of their healthcare system is centered around greed; does it really cost the hospital hundreds of dollars to give you an ambulance ride ? Besides, it costs 2-4 $ to produce a vial of insulin... and they're keeping a *5000%* margin of profit on it ? Seriously, that's not just greedy at this point, that's evil
I'm French. My mum had cancer a few years ago. she got all her hospital bills and chimio threatments taken care of for free. I'm just so grateful to our system. we complain a lot and strike a lot but it has a lot to do with us not wanting to give up on all these amazing advantages.
"For free" Americans will be familiar with the "it's not free, it's paid by others" but in the case of France it's not even paid by others, other don't have that money so it's pilled up on top of the current debt for future generations to pay (which they will have to because our debt increases faster than our GDP). Basically his mother got it for free so that his daughter won't get anything, how compassionate ! "these amazing advantages" will be paid by my generation and our children after us, amazing, i'm so grateful for this system. Boomers and their allies are the plague of this country.
as a french who suffers from chronic pain and who lives below the poverty line, I'm pretty happy with our health system. It's far from perfect, but i haven't seen one that beats it so far.
As a french worker that pays for our system and is healthy enougth to not benefit much from it until now, I am proud to help people in need like you. My personal take on it is that we need to help each others as humans, and who is more in need than someone with chronic pain, perhaps unable to work because of it? A contrario from united states (but understand that I respect the difference between our visions) we tend to think everyone should be cured if possible, no matter the cost. We see that cost a bit like the army budget : big but necessary for everyone.
@@Rufax59 The way I like to describe the difference in mindset between the US and France : Americans want the money to go to those who deserve it; we French want the money to go to those who need it. Obviously both have arguments for them, but I'm still horrified at the American idea of me first and anyone else after. It's most likely cultural differences.
It is still completely crazy to think that the arguably richest country in the world takes such little care of its citizens. This is a serious anomaly.
it's a national disgrace. but sadly, many things in the US don't work properly and the voters seem determined to keep it that way or make it even worse
It's a thing that has always baffled me: how the fuck the richest country on Earth and in history is completely incapable to implement a system that other less wealthy countries have?
@@adto5942its a reason why they are rich , those health security cost quite a lot , each dollars used to take care of unwealthy is less shell for US army.
It's not an anomaly. The USA is "rich" because its ruling governments cater to and kowtow to the Robber Baron Rich (Which I define as "worth" $50M+) and predatory capitalism. I point out that there are several historic "poor" countries (Phillipines and Argentina for instance) where there was an extreme rich/poor disparity which the USA is like in terms of power disparity but not culture.
It makes me happy that the French are so proud of their system. From what I heard in this video it looks very nice, even way better then the German system, which is already a paradise in comparison to the US system. Greeting from your biggest eastern neighbour 🇩🇪🤝🇫🇷😊
I live in France as a foreigner, and had a complete medical crisis this week. This Tuesday, out of the blue within the matter of a few minutes, I collapsed at home and was unable to get up with severe vomitting. It was extremely scary, and just before loosing consciousness, I managed to crawl to the telephone and phoned a friend for help. He informed the firemen, and my last thought was that I do not want them to smash my door, so I crawled to the door and opened it, and then collapsed at the intrance. To make it short: I got rushed by 4 firemen to the nearest hospital within minutes, got my blood checked, cardiac checks etc etc I do not even know what as I was unconscious. The tests came back well, but my situation was bad. Then one doctor found out it was an inflammation of a nerve in the ear responsible for balance and equilibrium. they then transfered me to another hospital, a special unit, where I got a private room with two beds. I was there for two nights, first night alone, the second I shared with another lady. All the time at both hospitals I had constant infusions of nutrion and medication, got cared for, had lots of tests done, etc etc and not once did anyone mention bills.I was stable within three days, after high corticone treatment intravenous. Everybody was extremely friendly, helpful and kind. Money is never an issue, it is the person and its health that counts. I have not paid one cent. I even got excellent French food. Which I could not eat.... One important thing to mention: France does not have only the best health care, and a very humane one, but more important also the best doctors on the same level as American doctors. That is very important too. That is my little experience this week. I am at home almost fine now. The condition I had is called Neuritis vestibularis, quite rare, can happen to anyone at any age, and very unpleasant. It is a viral inflammation. Thank goodness I was not in America but in France. P.S.: I forgot to mention that today I found out that the bill for all of it inclusive would have been a little over 5000 euros had I no medical aid, which everyone has.
Since you live in France you probably know that this is at heavy cost : it costs a lot to the State, even though there is not enough staff is about every single department and some, especially nurses, are also underpaid
@@randomguy8107 Im in the medium hight income. Get balls and increase the cotisation of the medium and high income and stop trying to say we should make savings on people health.
Hi french here, i think you misunderstood him, 90% of french people do have insurance, but the poor have a state wide one. while workers have a private one.
It's more complicated, part of what is payed to the doctor for example is payed by the state, the other part is payed by the "mutuelle" (private insurance that you're employer must give you). Then you pay that 1€ (which is pretty recent, we used to pay ZERO). And yes you can gat the "mutuelle" part payed by the State for free of for a symbolic Euro per month if you're poor. I actually was a beneficiary of this 1€ system when I came back after working in the US and while training for a new job (I didn't know it exists before I googled it)
Not exactly. We are ALL covered by sécurité sociale. The poorer have CMU. Anyone who works a salaried job has a mutuelle covered by their employers, independents have their own. Poor people don't have mutuelle (aka secondary private health insurance) but pay NOTHING when they go to the doctor
I had a carte vital in France as a pensioner on low income. But when I wanted to apply for residency I had to prove I wasn't using the system. So I paid for insurance it cost me 250 each month. That's extortionate. Plus, the French system is awful have to keep so much paperwork and take it with you each time. You have to show ID and pay each time you see a doctor. I paid 15 euros each time.
I'm French and one of my aunts had final stage skin cancer and nobody was giving her more than a year to live. Fortunately she met a doctor which registered her for an experimental treatment as anyway she had no other chances to survive. It cost her nothing and several years later not a single cancer cell left. I love our health care system and would defend it till the end
Just for the anecdote: I live in France, we struggled 5 years to have a kid, did multiple in vitro fecondations, along with countless visits to specialists... I cost us 100 euros / year which was to keep embyros on the freezer for one more year... At the end it worked out fine and we succeeded.
@@sushi777300 Maybe in the US it is considered a luxury. But since it is a medical issue, it is not in most of Europe. It is just a medical condition and you get treatment for it.
@sushi777300 who are you to decide that helping a couple conceiving a child is a luxury ? Is it also a luxury to save an old person from cancer? Or a smoker from a lung disease ?
@@sushi777300being able to have a child is NOT a luxury. Everyone should be able to have the same opportunities to have a child. People should be treated with equity. If that means some people need extra help to conceive, then I'd be happy for my taxes to help them.
In france : You're a resident either french or foreigner ->you get covered by the state If you work or have some money ->you get voluntary insurance If you're poor -> state provides voluntary insurance for you
As I dual French/British national living in France for the past 25 years, I have to agree that our health care system is pretty good but certainly not perfect. If you are in employment, you will pay into a private health insurance plan which should cover most, if not all, of your health care which is not covered by the social security (often the remaining 30%) this depends upon the type of plan your employer proposes. Dental care (except implants unfortunately), new eye glasses every 2 years including bi-focals, hospital care, blood tests, x-rays, prescription medicine is basically covered and we can choose our specialist anywhere in France. However, we do pay for it through high taxes and there are areas of France which are becoming medical deserts due to a shortage of professionals which the government needs to address through higher wages and wider training access. We are rightly proud of our health care but realise that it needs close attention and steady reform. Nobody here wants the American system and we cannot imagine how you guys cope. I don't envy the US system one bit!
@@astronotics531 pas seulement. Il y a une moins grande densité de population dans ces endroits, les médecins sont rémunérés au nombre de patients qui viennent les voir. Tu comprends que les nouveaux diplômés n'ont pas envie de s'exiler dans des trous pommés où ils n'auront certainement pas un salaire à la hauteur de leur études et responsabilités.
@@Hyxtrem Les deux départements qui sont les plus gros déserts médicaux (en personnels de santé par habitants) : le 93 et le 75. Il y a un problème à la fois de numerus closus (places en formation) et d'attractivité de certains départements.
@@lefol2206 le problème ne se pose pas seulement en personnel de santé par habitant; la réalité c'est qu'il y a des gens qui font 2h de route pour trouver un hopital faute de médecin, et en 2h il peut s'en passer des choses.
The medical deserts exist everywhere. Mostly rural areas because people simply don't want to live in those areas. Others because real estate is simply too expensive. The Americans pay in taxes more than twice more what the French pay for their Healthcare system. And they have to pay an expensive healthcare insurance on top plus ridiculous bills related to Healthcare on top. In other words, the taxes is a strawman argument.
I'm French, went to Belgium for the New Year, dislocated my shoulder there and got to the hospital. Ambulance, X-ray before and after putting my shoulder back in place, care... I didn't pay a thing. I expect to receive some bill sometime but thanks to the health system (and my European health card maybe ?) I'm not worried it's going to be expensive. I'm not sure which is the best but I'm glad most of Europe has this kind of healthcare system
Oui, c'était grâce à votre Carte Européenne. J'ai dû aller à l'hôpital aussi alors que j'étais en Espagne et je n'ai rien payé justement parce que j'avais cette carte.
@@ninalempicka2948 Je savais que cette épaule était fragile depuis longtemps mais c'était vraiment un truc de merde, 3h du matin au FCKNYE sur une connerie je mets tout mon poids sur mon bras sur un sol glissant, ça part dans une direction pas normale... Grosse douleur mais je me suis dit que ça allait jusqu'à ce que mes potes me fassent remarquer que mon épaule est pas là où elle devait etre... Je commence la rééducation au kiné cette semaine mdr
Hello Ryan ! It's mandatory for French companies to offer complementary health insurance (mutuelle in French) since 2018 and it's also mandatory for employees to have one. Usually couples decide and opt for the one with the best reimbursement and they go under the plan of their partner or their own. A regular doctor's meeting is about 25€ but most of the time (from my experience) I do not even have to advance, just my social security card and complementary health insurance take the job directly. If I have to advance it's reimbursed entirely. For bigger things like dentist, glasses or hearing aid, there is also a law where the specialist HAVE to offer you an option that is entirely reimbursed (0€ left to pay for you). It's maybe not the fanciest glasses frame or the smallest hearing aid for instance but it'll do and it'll be 0€ for you.
@@emilydavison2053 as a child you’re covered under social security and your parents plan + the state has special free meetings for kids for like dental. Unemployed it depends the situation but you benefit from already reimbursement of social security so you just have to pay the part that would usually be covered by your Mutuelle for a regular doctor note ie: 7.5€ left out of the 25. For elderly, Social security + usually they opt for dedicated mutuelle for seniors (bit more pricey)
@@emilydavison2053 Unemployed people are covered by the general fund. Retirees are covered by their previous employer's fund. Children are covered by their parents' fund. Then, as explained, you may need a private insurance to cover all the expenses.
@@emilydavison2053 Poor people are double covered by the French state, the general found and the complementary part (normaly paid by insurances). Also french insurances are mostly non profit insurance and very cheap.
I live in France and can confirm that the doctor visiting is a thing, but there are conditions, either it's an emergency, like a kid with a very bad fever, or a senior person who can't move easily, the doctor won't visit anyone at any condition, that would be insane and impractical!
@@AshleysMommy Yes it's efficient but you need to live in a big city, in country or mountain (where I live) no SOS Médecins and none doctor visits at home. So you need to go there or call the SAMU to bring you to the hospital (1h20 from home)... I've lived at the time when EVERY doctors where able to home visit, nowadays it's finish...
@@victoriagossani8523 I live in Val d'Oise, so I guess it's different than in more rural areas. I'm 42 and I remember when I was little our family doctor did house visits, I think the last time we had a regular doctor do a house visit was somewhere around 2000.
@@AshleysMommy I've worked 15 years as "auxiliaire de vie", I had many "customers", and have worked in several cities, (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Sarlat and Paris) and all of my "customers" had doctors that home visites. The last was in Paris, her doctor was visiting her every week, it was beginning of 2020 (I've stop my activity in May 2020) . IMO the covid has given to the doctors a good opportunity to stop this service (perhaps some old doctors still do it...). I've learn lately that it has began before covid but I've never encounter this situation before it. It's a shame; even if some patients took advantage on this service without real good reasons but the laziness, others really needed it.
France is not the exception. Most of Europe works like that. Funny thing: we still have Health Insurance companies. And they make good business. The public system is there, so they cannot exhort you like in USA, because you can always opt out and go to public health system. So their only way to survive is to have good quality. Now, that will blow your mind: people that can afford it uses the private health system (that costs, say, a deductible $100-$300 per family) for minor things. Dermatologists, muscular pains, X-Rays or bold tests that are asked for by your PUBLIC doctor... all those kind of stuff. They are normally faster than public system, and... you know... you pay for it so you better use it! That relieves some work from the public system and, by comparison, forces the public system to stay at a good level. BUT... for anything serious... you trust your PUBLIC system! The best doctors work for public, so, if you have cancer, a trauma or any hearth condition... you go to the public system.
In France, you don't "opt out and go to public system", you ALWAYS benefit from the public system, and can take additonal private insurance to get better reimbursment in some areas.We don't even call it "health insurrance", but "complémentaire santé", "health complementary", because it's always a complement on top of the public system.
Here in Malaysia, you just need to pay USD0.25 per visit & free medicines. If you are warded, the government hospital will charge you USD0.75 - USD1 staying per night n 3-4 meals included. If you need to attend any post hospitalisation treatment or appointment, it would be absolutely free of charge. If you are a person in special need ( handicap ) or senior citizen - no charges at all till you die.
Hey Ryan, live in France and have lived in the US. The French healthcare system is amazing. Not only are the costs so much better but so is the quality of care and the outcomes. Much better access and shorter waiting times. France has more physicians per capita and has better availability and distribution of doctors for rural areas.
Pourtant dans les petits villages y’a plus assez de médecins ils partent tous et globalement y ‘en a pas assez. C’est impossible de trouver un médecin traitant qui t’accepte
@@etiennelebeauf5068 C'est exact, cependant c'est largement pire aux Etats-Unis. Ceci dit, ce n'est pas une raison pour qu'on ne se mobilise pas contre les déserts médicaux ici et qu'on honore l'héritage d'Ambroise Croizat (un communiste, quelle horreur (sarcasme) !).
@@etiennelebeauf5068 Faut comparer ce qui est comparable, selon les USA eux mêmes certains états ont des classements qui se comparent au Soudan ou des pays en crise durable. On connait des difficultés c'est vrai et t'as raison d'en parler pour nuancer ce pseudo paradis médical ( surtout avec les tensions hospitalières ), mais faut voir les échelles de comparaison. Un homme malade dans l'état le plus médicalement délabré aux USA et le département français le plus délabré pour ce sujet ( surement Creuse/Lozere/Correze ) je signe direct pour les départements français. Faut se rendre compte que des américains ne vont pas au médecins pendant 10 ans parfois AVEC un problème qui les gène mais qu'il ne solutionne pas à cause des frais exorbitants. Faut vraiment avoir des soins extrêmement dangereux pour rivaliser avec ... Pas de soins du tout disponible. Après peut être que je me trompe mais ça me parait juste incomparable, on pourrait dire que bizarrement notre systéme tend plus vers celui des USA que l'inverse, toutes proportions gardées.
I'm french and quadriplegic. Since it is a long-term affection, all treatments related to my disability are fully covered by the social security. So basically, medicine, visits to the doctor and weekly kinesitherapy is all free. Since last year, I got a job in a big company that provide additional health insurance for ma, my wife and my kids. Since then, it has fully covered all our medical expenses that were left after the social security, including visit to specialists, glasses, dental care, and more. About child care, I was shocked by how much it cost in the US and I was horrified to see that in some hospitals, the ptrent were even charged for holding their newborn babies. In France, we get paid when we get children (the more children you have, the more money you get). A couple of prices: - seeing a doctor: 25 euros - seeing a specialist: 60 euros - most medicine cost a dozen euros or less
En effet il y a les allocations familiales qui commencent au 2ème enfants. Il y a des déductions d'impôts pour les élèves selon l'âge et une demi part par enfant , il y a les primes de rentrée scolaire, le congés parental d'éducation, le congés maternité et paternité, les primes parent isolé, ... Les crèches sont chères mais déductibles. Les écoles sont gratuites, les livres sont gratuits, un ordi est fourni, on peut manger à la cantine pour quelques euros voir gratuitement selon les revenus... Malgré cela la natalité ne cesse de baisser. Nous sommes à moins de 2 enfants par femmes, et cela n'assure plus le renouvellement de population, qui forcément vieillie, et il y a de plus en plus de maladies lié à l'age, car la durée de vie augmente (Homme 80 ans Femme 85,7 ans) et les impôts montent car il y a moins d'actifs pour cotiser, la sécu sombre ... Pour les médecins la loi de Macron de 2019 devrait se ressentir d'ici 2027. Il faut le temps de former les nouveaux médecins. Le problème est : faut il plus accepter de migrants qui feront des enfants, et cotiseront en travaillant ? ou bien augmenter la durée de 3 ans max ou le montant du congés parental 398 euros ? Je crois qu'il ya une nouvelle loi qui arrive, congé parental mieux payé mais moins longtemps.
@@morphilou78c'est pas gratuit et justement, c'est avec cet argent que nous payons pour tout le monde qui ne travaille pas ou ne peut pas travailler : retraités, malades, handicapés, personnes qui ont eu un accident, une maladie grave qui les empêchent de travailler pour le moment, les enfants, etc.
I love the words I once heard "The universal healthcare is so difficult that only 32 of 33 developed countries managed to make it work" 🤓 Actually that's 39 of 40 but I tried to save the message untouched
I live partly in France and partly in the Netherlands. Compared to the system in the US ours is great. But I think you need to realize it is more then the healthcare system alone. For example, studying here is, compared to the US, cheap. So you can actually study to be a healthcare professional without ending up with a ridiculous amount of dept, so the salaries of those healthcare professionals can be more reasonable. And, of course, governments and insurance companies can negotiate prices, which is mostly forbidden in the US. With hospitals, specialists and pharmaceuticals. For example: last year there was a special kind of medicine in the news for a rare disease, which an American pharmaceutical tried to sell for about 1.5 million euro a year per patient. So the health ministers of about 8 EU countries called each other, joined forces and negotiated together to buy this stuff a lot cheaper. Now it is available for those who need it. Even the actual costs of medication (paid by insurance) is a lot less here then you guys in the US pays. If you are sick, you go to a GP, a specialist or a hospital. Nobody thinks about the costs (only about their health) and nobody is going to be in huge dept or going bankrupt because of medical bills. The whole idea that Americans don’t go to a docter or don’t call an ambulance because of the costs is absurd to us.
Hi you should check out the prices of the schools in Europe compared to the US, it won't stop you from coughing though. Take care and thanks for the video :)
Im french and to make it more specific: French health care is: If you are poor you pay nothing and get all cares for free with no insurance. If you are middle or rich You pay an insurance per month Could be with your job or other. Social security pay 70% of the bill (doctor/hospital /analysis/drugs...) And the other 30% is your insurance mostly of the time they pay around 20 /25% depends of the doctor you see The insurance amount starts from around 20 euros to around 100 euros per months depends of your age, the older you are the more expensive it is, also if you choose a high rate for teeth for exemple some cares that are not considered as vital People who have a chronic condition are 100% taking in charge (Pregnancy included as long as you choose public care) That's the care part You also get paid by social security if you are not able to work for disease, as long as the doctor deliver you at least 3 days off work Then you got maternity live: For a first kid, the mother get fully paid until the baby turn 2 months and a half (just as if she was working) and then for 6 months she gets around 800 euros universal staying home, after 6 months she has to get back to work For second child the same but instead of 6 months its 2 years. Also if anyone from another country get sick in France, he can go to hospital for free. French health care is amazing i really wish you american could get the same BUT you have to kept in mind that we are really charged on our wages, like on a 1800 euros wage, after social care tax went by you get 1400 euros final + annual wage tax that's why the richer you are, the more you pay.
Americans get taxed about the same but with none of the benefits. See you may think you pay a lot of tax cause you don’t like the way you feel about that money leaving your account buuuuut you basically don’t pay for anything. You don’t have to pay for school including university unless you want to go private. Meanwhile a random major in an American university is about 60k out of your pocket. Hence why pretty much every American is in debt in one way or another
My grandma have lung cancer and i will never be able to say how thanksfull i am that she can have acces to the best treatment in the world and the only complain she have is that the food in the hospital is bad. VIVE LA FRANCE
I have just undergone 2 surgical procedures here in a public hospital in the suburb of Paris, the first to take samples for analysis and the second, the main one, for an operation that lasted 5 hours with a robot. Both operations were performed under general anaesthetic. I spent just 2 nights in hospital and everything went very well. I paid a total of €120 for a single room.
Hey, I just stumbled upon this mind-blowing video about France and its massive territories worldwide. It’s wild how we didn’t realize how big, well ... massive, I should say, France really is. The video, “Why France is Secretly the World’s 5th Biggest Country” by RealLifeLore, has been watched over 4.2 million times. You should totally do a reaction video on it and spill your thoughts. Seriously, it left me gobsmacked and I had no clue France was like that.
I'm French, a few years ago I had a seizure because of a benign brain tumor, in total I stayed in the hospital for a little more than 2 months for the tumor to be analaysed and removed, I only paid something like 30 euros once I got home because one the bandages I was using for my surgery scars wasn't included in social security, that's all, the ride to the hospital with the paramedics, the hospital room (which was one full room for myself, with tv), the multiple CT scans, the surgery and the medications after the surgery were all free. Now I'm monitored by doing a CT scan once a year, I pay for it but I am fully reimbursed a few days later. We like to complain a lot, but damn this is so reassuring knowing that I can get sick and not be in debt forever because of it (and I'm not even talking about the fact that I am allowed to get sick and not to go to work without losing any pay day)
Hello from France 🇫🇷 ! When I was still in school I really wanted to live in the United States (the American dream and all that) but even though our health care system is far from perfect I just can’t imagine spending any kind of money on a human right. I also looked at the electrical infrastructure, public transportation, etc and at the time Donald Trump just got elected so… Yeah now I live in Belgium but I go to France often thanks to our train network ! Also I spend 0€ in medical things per year yay 🎉
As a French, we use to laugh at one thing : a superb piece of art that is "breaking bad" couldn't just exist in my country : first episode, "I got cancer" "you have your carte vitale (card proving your social security rights) ?" "yep ?" "right, come on in, we'll treat it, no need to sell meth, zero fee to pay". less and less thrue btw, we're destroying it (and certainly not reimbursing homeopathy since a few years back, thanksfully).
I am French, we do pay for our health care, its just that compared to the US we pay next to nothing. I am 33 and got only one major operation that I remember (I got another one before I was one that dont ask me) that operation bill was 2000€ my parent and I paid nothing the bill is mostly presented so people dont abuse the system
" we pay next to nothing " ... euhhh ...sur toute une carrière , tkt pas que ça chiffre ... Regarde bien la petite ligne sécu sur ta fiche de paye ;) Après c'est sur , le jour où t'as un truc qui " devrait " couter 100.000 €, tu te dit que t'es remboursé de ce que t'as payé toutes ces années. à titre perso j'ai 400€ de pris sur mes fiches de paye , après 20 ans de carrière les 100.000 € on en est plus très loin ... Mais qui dit que j'en aurais besoin un jour ? Je pense qu'on a un bon système ( une bonne base du moins ) , mais on devrait y ajouter un bonus/malus ... genre ceux qui l'utilisent peu sont en partie remboursés et ceux qui en abusent payent + cher pour compenser... ça calmerait certains qui prennent des arrêts maladie de 2 semaines aux frais de la princesse juste pour s'occuper du gamin pendant les vacances par exemple ^^
Why don’t we just cut to the chase and admit that the American healthcare system is atrocious and purely based on profit, while countries who actually have the patients best interests as a priority are far far better than the American system, do a video on the Australian medical system.
Re the cancer drug portion: it's true. When my Mum was suffering from cancer she was getting access to the latest and greatest experimental stuff from the US, where a single dose can run in the tens of thousands, if not the hundreds of thousands - and it was all paid for by the state. Also paid: a taxi to come pick her up from our house in the country and take her to the hospital outside Paris for chemo (about an hour and a half away), wait there and then bring her back.
This native Californian left in 2007 for the south of France. I wouldn't trade my life here for anywhere. I have numerous relatives in Canada and while it is much better than what you have, it certainly isn't what it was in my grandmother's day... You can't begin to imagine everything that is covered and all that is available.
I’ve been thinking of moving abroad for years- but was finishing my 20 years in military. Have pension and ready to leave- looking at Provence/Occitanie areas.
@@LeoLady3966 I am in the Languedoc and couldn't be happier anywhere. Provence is lovely as well. Each has much to offer. Here my dollars go farther and when I get the urge, Spain is less than an hour away. I wish you all the best in your journey.
I'm a Brit and I love our NHS but I haven't lived at home for like 15 years now. I have lived in Ireland, France and Denmark and let me tell you, France's healthcare system is awesome. Now I've left I truly miss it. What's even more awesome is Doctorlib. It's a tool set up to let you find any type of doctor anywhere in france. You can hold your documents there, make appointments, upload files, download letters from the dr, your prescriptions are stored there. It lets you search your area for the nearest or soonest appointment and it's just so super easy. God I wish we had that here in Denmark.
@@cherylhoggins1925 Ha ! Ha ! Don't worry, I was joking and there are more serious things than making this mistake... especially for a non-French woman ! 🤭
I went to the emergency room in France at night because I vomited blood. I underwent a gastroscopy. The emergency room visit, the gastroscopy, and the meal before they sent me home cost me 8.50 euros
Personal story that I wanted to share, I'm not going to much in the details. I'm french (from my father) and mexican (from my mother). My parents beeing married and living in France since 1995, my mother is french and is included in the french healthcare system. Around 2015, my mother got a breast cancer. Fairly easy, she was diagnosed, 2 weeks later she had her first chemio, did all the treatments and was cancer free a year later. She also had a breast removal, which can happen. Everything was covered, from the treatment to the travel costs by car or ambulance, including the breast removal (and replacement) and the therapy (you know, risks of depression). The only thing that my parents paid was the travel costs of my father ONLY IF he was not with my mother, and a nutritionist. Around the same time, a mexican aunt had a cancer (I don't know which kind, and I didn't knew her at all). They were a family gathering to see who could put money on the table to save that person. The family couldn't buy the treatment. She died a year later. In France, she would have received a treatment.
C’est ce qu’on appelle la solidarité, tout le monde paye ( assez peu ) et les malades qui en ont besoin sont soignés le mieux possible quels que soient leurs revenus. Personne n’est immortel ou invincible…La santé : tout va bien jusqu’à ce que rien n’aille plus , qui peut savoir quelle maladie le frappera et quel coût aura le traitement … Vendre sa maison, sa voiture, tous ses biens pour rembourser des soins …woaw…délirant !!!
I'm French and I'm a bit surprised our system is still considered one of the best with all the problems of the public hospitals that recently became blindingly obvious since the COVID. (to summarize : our leaders decided to make public hospitals become profit-driven companies instead of prioritizing curing people, leading to worse working conditions, lots of unnecessary paperwork, bad planning etc.). It's nice to be reminded than even if it's been going downhill recently, it's still something to be proud of.
What most french fixating on their own problems don't realise is, when things go south at home, they go as badly or worse mostly everywhere else. We are still amongst the best (even with all the problems) in healthcare because everyone else is having it bad too. Just like inflation, our worst average was 6.7 a year while European average was 11,5 a year and UK 9.6 (Argentina and Turkey went up to 120%). Energy crisis: have you seen the prices increases in UK or Germany winter 2022 compared to our own EDF being capped? Traveling or looking at international news helps put things in perspective. After - effects of Covid, Ukraine, Inflation and Gaza did not hit only us, and hey did not hit us as hard (Ukraine and Gaza being obvious winners for that).
Am French and i have a small Health problem with social security alone my medication cost 2Euros per Month and i went to do an X-Ray Last Month and stayed in the hospital a bit and all that for free and stress free most importantly so yeah i feel lucky
I live in Alberta 🇨🇦 with my incurable disease all of my Drs & I have a lot!! Over 15!! Everything is paid for!! Meds, ambulance, my treatments that are $20,000!!/treatment, dental, eyes literally everything!! I can’t complain!! I’d be dead if I lived in the US! My cousin is in Florida right now for cancer treatment, Alberta is paying for a huge sum of it, don’t know the exact amount but I’d say 95% if not all of it?? We did a fundraiser for his wife so she could be with him 💕🙏🏻🤞🏻
Luxembourg here. Had a accident on a former work place where a air pressure line exploded next to my left ear and I went completely deaf (eardrum ruptured and cochlea heavily damaged). My doctor heard about an experimental treatment where they put you in a pressure chamber and make you breathe pure oxygen for 5 hours a day during a week. He thought, why not and prescribed it. During my next visit, during the audio tests, I performed better than before my last visit before the accident and currently, I‘m still at 120% of that level. Didn’t have to pay anything out the pocket except the ticket for the parking. That’s not covered. Was 2€ a day.
Another thing about UK health care, in the early 1990's had problems with severe depression, asked GP for referral. The top consultant for the local health authority knocked on my door and sat with me in my living room and discussed my problems then booked me into the local mental health ward, again the cost for 2 weeks was £0
I went a bit wobbly headed a few years ago too. My GP was amazing. She sat and held my hand while I melted down at the surgery, sorted me out with the suitable medication and local therapy stuff. It took me a couple of years to shake it all off, but shake it off I did. She moved away not long after, but I bumped into her on a train some time later (I was a conductor at the time). As I was checking her ticket and what have you she she leant forward and quietly said "And how are you feeling now?", which I was rather touched by after all that time and the many thousands of patients she must have seen since.
I'm french, got diagnosed with autism at the CRA clinic in the town of Montpellier, I had a lot of tests and appointment for that diagnosis, costed me a total of 17€ XD the fuel to drive there was more expensive
As an Australian on holiday in France, had a really nasty flu, saw a Dr, no charge! Was prescribed a veritable mountain of medicine, thought it was going to cost a fortune, and yes I think we paid either nothing, or just a few Euros, cant recall. My wife had a similar experience.
By the way, your experience shows a serious problem with our healthcare : there is no need for a mountain of medicine for a flu. We are wasting billions in useless, and sometime dangerous, drugs.
@@daveg2104not travel insurance, we fully expected to be paying! Since we picked up the medicine at local chemist they weren’t being ‘charitable’ our understanding was that it was because it was prescribed.
It's called the Aide Médicale aux Etrangers -AME, acronym for soul (Medical Aid to Strangers), even if you're uninsured, and even if you're illegally there (well that changed with the immigration law recently but we'll know this week if this passes as unconstitutional), you won't have to provide any ledger or bank or insurance paperwork, we'll take care of you first. Then we'll look at the paperwork : oh, a stranger got sick during their stay in France ? First we cure, then we ask questions. If you have the means to pay, you will (but it will be exceptionally cheap). If not, well, take care !
French cancer patient here. I'm from Canada Québec (where health system is "kind of" good) and have been living in France since 2011. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in november 7th 2020. I had seen my doctor 6 days before for a bump on my breast and he prescribed a mammography and one hour after the mammo the oncologist took a biopsy and came with the result the next day. Since it was in the middle of the covid pandemic, they told me that the process would take a lot more time that it would have in normal time. Here is the way it worked for me as a ALD patient (affection longue durée - Long term illness) - everything is free, not a penny out of my pocket - drive to hospital, stay in hospital, surgery, meds even the wig and the prosthesis were paid for. First, a group a doctor met following the result of the biopsy to decide what would be the best treatment for my case : the oncologist, the surgeon, the radiotherapist - and my family doctor. During all the procedure they communicated together with letters and sent me all copies. Because of covid, I had the surgery only on Dec 1st, 3 weeks after diagnosis. Stayed 2 days in hospital then went home. A nurse came to my place every 2 days for 6 months to change the bandages and take blood samples to make sure I was ok for chimio. I went to hospital 4 times a week for chimio, in ambulance (they call it ambulance and depending on your health it is either a car driven by a nurse or an ambulance where you can lay down if you can't be sited). I used those ambulances for all chimio and radios, for doctors appointements and mammos and still use them - free whenever the appointment is related to the breast cancer. It has been almost 4 years now, I still have appointments with one of the doctors every 3 months - oncologist, surgeon, radiolotherapist and family doctor and I still have a nurse who comes home every 6 months for a blood sample. After 5 years it will be only once every 2 years until I am 70 and then once every year again. Québec Canada has a good health system but many doctors who sudied there for almost free prefer to go work in usa where they are better paid. So, in Québec the wait to see a doctor is very long. Having a cancer is never a great news but I sur am glad to have been living in France when it happened to me. An other subject that is different from Canada, dentists almost all dental care, and glasses are also free in France. For the glasses you can change every 2 years but if you want really expensive glasses (Dior, Prada... etc) you have to pay, or your private insurance, part of the cost. Same for dental implant.
I'm so glad Canada is working on adding Dental Care and Pharma care to our Universal Healthcare. Already starting this year, Families earning less than $90 000 will get coverage for Dental Care. Pharma care is even more important, if you take all your medications regularly, you don't end up in the hospital. Pharma Care actually saves costs on healthcare.
Yup. I'm disabled due to my years of work (Military Contractor) and recently received my sign up. Long overdue, especially given that Dental Health Issues are a major cause of other health problems. As for Pharma, definitely a plus. My yearly co-pay for all drugs is $75.
Biden and Bernie proposed as part of Build Back Better coverage of dental, vision and hearing for Medicare eligible persons! As far as I know the First in the world! It didnt get Passed because of Manchin, but might get be Passed after 2024 if you vote for Democrats!
Franch Speech Therapist here. Speech therapy is covored by healthcare sytem here, so I have experiences as a sick person and as a professional. So, 2/3 of the cost lot of procedures are covered by healthcare system. For mental health, it is only psychiatrist (that are doctors), not psychologists (that are not), but in some public care centers that are financed by healthcare system, you can find psychologists. Wait for monthes to gezt an appointement in there. Lot of alternative medecine are not covered too. Public healthcare covers 2 thirds of the price of the basic care. If you want pricy glasses or pricy dentures for eg, you have to pay from your pocket. For the other part, you have an insurance through your job. It is mandatory since I think 4 or 5 years ago for each company to negociate a health insurance plans with an insurance company for their employees, with the participation of a board of employees representatives elected by the employees (it is a preexisting board, it was not invented for that purpose). As an employee, you now have to choose one of those plan and the price of your insurance is automaticly deducted from salary. You cannot choose to have nothing (that was your choice before). Some plans cover some psychologists every years, or some alternative medecine. The cheapest ones just cover the other third of most basic cares. People with no income or very low incomes can apply for a 100% covering from public healthcare (it is not automatic, you have to apply). For long term disease or some handicap, the public healthcare system take care of all the expenses listed as necessary in your condition. For handicap, you can apply for special coverage of some expenses in a special place. It is nice, but you have to fill lot of papers (and some health or social workers too) and wait sometimes for several monthes. Most of the private practices and private hospitals follow the prices decided by the governement for care, so you don't have to pay, but you can have bad surprises. I was pissed to pay 45 euros from my pocket in addition of the price paid by healthcare and my insurance for a 10 mn appointement with an anesthesist without prior notice. But after seeing videos of US healthcare system, I guess I was still lucky to be in France. On another side, the succesive governements, since years, are kind of destroying this beautiful system, espeacially public hospitals. Workers in hospitals are not well paid, we don't have enough doctors or nurses anymore, so they are overworked. More and more time and money is spend on some administration to control the way you are spending the hospital funds. I mean, control is somehow necessary, but the amount of paper works (in fact, computer work), it became crumpling. Having less time to take a good care of their patients, workers find less meaning in their work, get bruned out etc... Depending on where you live, ER can be an adventures going for hours.
I'm English, going back to 1986 my wife went into labour with our youngest son, we were on holiday in north Wales. We saw the local doctor straight away on arrival, she was put in an ambulance for a 50 mile trip to the hospital, picking up a midwife on the way, baby delivered and put in special care, wife cared for on maternity ward,. Baby transferred to hospital in our home town by ambulance with special care nurse , Bill for all this £0
That's fine that the NHS was one of the best systems in the world. The question is how the status is today after 13 years of underfunding by the Tory government.
@@markwilliams5654 no it wasn't free but having paid my national insurance I was was not presented with huge bills as I might have been in other countries
The Health System in Spain is quite similar to the French one. Some differences: - Dental is not covered, and psuquiatric is poor covered, you should wait for months to the first appointment. - The system is completely financed by payslips taxes and the government, but, the most part of these taxes are payed by the employer (23.6% of salary), the worker only pay a few part (4.7%). - These taxes cover also the unemployment assurance, where you can be payed until max two years. - Also, these taxes cover the retirement. - When you go to the doctor, specialist, emergencies or hospital, you don't pay anything. 0€ - If you have a serious or chronical disease, you don't pay anything. - About medicines, you pay an small part of they, but not your hospital treatment, these drugs are completely covered. - Retired people pay even less, only some cents for the medicines. - Many private hospitals send the more serious cases to the public system, because they have the better and more qualificated professionals and the better machines. - The system is universal, it cover the 100% of population, even the migrants, even the unemployed workers. Our system (as the French one) is based in solidarity, and it gives you some peace of mind. This is a problem that you don't need to worry about.
I live in France I pay €27 for a doctors visit, €25 is reimbursed, however as a diabetic all treatment and medicines are covered by the state. I had €2000 worth of denta treatment, I have to pay the dentist by cheque, I then send the bill to my insurance, as soon as I recieve the money I tell the dentist to present the cheque. Edit, my insurance is €75 a month. My wife pays the same, her last hospital bill was €14K, paid by the state and insurance, alszo paying for taxis and the TV in her private room. As a diabetic I go into hospital every couple of years for checks/education, all covered. The hospial I use is a private one, food was excellent however they no longer serve wine.
For those who are a little confused by the 50€/year cap : When I go see a generalist doctor, It costs ~25€, on those 25, healthcare pay 17.50€, and I've to pay 7.50€. Those 7.50€ are refunded by my voluntary health insurance (private) so I've to pay them then get the money back. For each operation done by healthcare system, there is a tax (from 0.50€ to 1€) that is collected when I buy my drugs (not fully refunded by healthcare, only the amount-taxes) and it's those taxes that are capped at 50€/year. Si if I go visit the doctor 100 times in the year, with a 0.50€ tax each time, i've spent 50€ in tax, so I'm not taxed anymore for the rest of the year (I can go to the doctors freely, and it's full covered by healthcare and private insurance).
I am French and we have been fighting for these fundamental rights for centuries. Housing, health care, school, pensions (now threatened) and we keep on fighting. This is not communism or socialism, these are just rights to live. We all participate through our taxes depending on our resources. Before WW2, in 1936 France already voted for many rights. Keep fighting people just for the right to live. LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ have a meaning and are truly implemented as constitutional rights.
The French and Belgian system is very comparable, and a doctors-appointment was priced about the same up until 2019 (20 to 25 EUR). However, the part that used to be re-embursed by the "private/public health insurance (Mutuelle) is now already deducted at the time of the visit itself. Meaning, a doctors appointment now only costs 4 EUR! The yearly cost for my Mutuelle subscription is 90 EUR, the rest of our social security system is being covered through taxes (our income tax is about 55%). More advanced treatment like a dentist, specialists, or consultations that require special machinery (MRI) can be expensive as they are covered for anything between 30% and 70%. That's why most employees in Belgium working mid-end to high-end jobs, have an additional 'group insurance" through their job. It coverss alot of the more expensive stuff and grants you a single room when you are admitted to hospital and other medical expenses you could have abroad.
Ryan, to answer your question at the end of the video about the financing: I am French and lived in the US 30 years ago, before returning to France. It took me 1.5 years to reimburse the US hospital for the birth of my second child (and I had a US health insurance). I did not pay anything for the the birth of my 3 other children in France. So, why is it so expensive in the US? There is a fundamental reason: ideology. In the US, everyone says "in a free market, you get the best prices". This is true, but the important word in the sentence is "free". When you are sick, you are NOT free. Nobody wants to die. You are ready to give all your money to save your life. This is why Health Coverage must me regulated and not follow the logic of insurances - it's not, it's protection! Once you understand this, you can force the system using the law and set prices for visits, medications, etc. Forget about malpractices, lawsuits, etc. All these things increase tremendously the costs in the US, and it only make laywers rich. In France, doctors do not have an obligation of success, they have an obligation of effort. BTW, the French system is hybrid, there is a private sector. But the competition of the (rather good) public system and regulations avoid crazy prices. There are other reasons about the huge costs in the US, like the medication distribution system which is completely screwed up. But that's another (less important) factor. The main factors are the cost of the education that has to be refunded somehow, and most of all the legal costs. Be aware that not everything is perfect in France. We are struggling with a lack of doctors and specialists, and rising costs of equipment and care. But the Health Care in Europe is way better and cheaper than in the US. In the US, you get the best care... as long as you can afford it.
8:45 that's if you only have the social security, as he said earlier, 90% of french people have also private insurance (usually around 30-35€ a month), and when you add that on top of the social security, you don't actually pay anything when you visit the doctor or pay for medications, I'm 30 and I have yet to pay out of pocket for anything health related in my entire life, with the exception of one blood test because (apparently) one of the things tested wasn't covered, so I paid like 20 bucks
The US should use a system where everyone is obligated to be insured for basic things and the government forcing the companies to use that money for healthcare by law. There are many variants on this system from nationalised healthcare to a regulated private sector with partly nationalised partly market run systems in the middle. There are all kinds of pro's and cons to those kind of choises but fact is they are cheaper and more humane for everyone. But as long as people in the US wish to refuse basic rights to them selves, it is their choice. It's your country. Good luck with it!
In France, we have doctors that you can call 24/7/365. They're called SOS MEDECINS. Not so long ago, I was in pain, in the middle of the night. I kwew the pain came from my gallbladder, I'd had it before. One of these doctors came to my house, I told him what I thought the pain was coming from several times, but because I was 57yrs old, he gave me an EKG just to make sure. There was nothing there, so he left me enough pain killers to make it through the night and the day after to give me time to go to a hospital. I gave him my social security card to read on his terminal. And I did not pay anything.
SOS Medecin is great! I had crazy pain one day as well and couldn't sleep or do anything, doctor came, gave me strong medicines and I was feeling nicer the next day.
I'm french, one day someone in my family had a grave heart problem, an ambulance came to pick her up (lives in a very rural area), travelled to the nearest field, an helicopter transferred us to an airstrip where a private jet was waiting for her and flew to a hospital focused on childcare. They did not pay a single sense out of pocket.
7:42 He doesn't explain that well in the video, but basically you usually pay the doctor upfront (about 25€) and later the healthcare system reimburses you automatically. It used to be via a caresheet that the doctor gave you and you would have to submit it in order to get reimbursed, but now it's automated via your "carte vitale" (vital card, basically a healtcare ID). This is an obstacle to some people who resent going to see a specialist because they can't always afford to issue a larger sum of money. That's the reason why most people have a side insurance (called "mutuelle"), which allows you to sometimes get appointments without having to pay if you go to a partner specialist of theirs, and also helps cover costs for non-essential care, like hearing and sight, or some bigger interventions, which are often only partially reimbursed. For example, reimbursement for glasses is much higher than for contact lenses.
here's an example (I'm French). My Girlfriend has a chronic disease. She needs to take pills every 6 months or so, one of those pills cost around 14 000 €. She litterally pays nothing, the doctor give her a paper everytime that prove she's sick, and then she get the medicine for free. The entire cost is taken in charge by the french social security. Same for X-RAY and MRI scans, it's fully free. An example of something not free in France is eyes laser surgery, which cost about 600€ to 2000€ following the type of surgery, it's because for now it's consider as a cosmetic surgery. Those examples are rare. Health Care system and public authority have a lot of flaws in France, but just because we're fully taken in charge by social securtiy make feel very happy to be french. Hope some days, USA and others country that can afford this type of systems could do the same.
As a french person, it is hilarious to watch a sick american react to our healthcare system. XD Although I must say, if our system is great, the quality of work conditions for health workers has droped significantly over the past few decades. There has even been a health workers strike only a few months before the pandemic because of that.
U.S is the only wealthy Country that doesn't have some form of a National health scheme. It's 1 of only 45 in the world without Universal health care. It also has the highest expenditure per capita (citizen+) @ $12k per person/annum. 2nd is Germany @ $7k per person per annum. 2023. Unfortunately the highest cost doesn't mean better outcomes. VOTE 💙2024 for improved outcomes
I'm French and spent 7 months in a private hospital last year. I didn't pay a dime. The system is far from perfect but I am very grateful to live in a country where my health expenses are being taken care of, I dont know how I would survive without it given my chronic conditions.
French here. I've never had big health issues that could've brought me to the hospital, but got some little things during my life and also get sick sometimes, as everyone. And everytime it happens, I'm so grateful for our healthcare system. Going to the doctor and pay only like 8€, and then going to the pharmacy and getting all of my medications for free is just incredible. I think a lot of people don't realize how lucky we are compared to a lot of other countries, especially countries like USA.
Well explained, to add a bit more info, you have different 'sectors' for doctors. For sector 1, the price for a GP is set at 26.5€ : you pay 1€, general insurance pays 17.5 € and your voluntary insurance pays for the rest. Sector 2 is the same but the doctor can set his own prices and anything above those 26.5€ is either covered by your voluntary insurance or out of your pocket. And sector 3 which is completly out of the system and you pay everything
Actually sec3 gets a 61cents refund 😅 And can be either fully or partially paid for by your private insurance (mutuelle). If the price is reasonnable (up to 50euros) any mutuelle should cover it fully. If not, maybe time to take a look at what your mutuelle offers...
I'm retired and live in France. I'm covered by the general system but also have a "mutuel", suplementary cover, costing €72 per month. With this I get free glasses, free dental treatment, free hospital, ambulance travel, doctor's visits, radiologie, laboratory tests.
Well here in India,there are government hospitals that charge 1rs as consultation fees per visit and provide free generic medicine for some of the common illnesses.Also most of tests and x rays are conducted free of charge.
French here who have lived in India, I'm agree, government hospital are free and I have to say that even if people need to go to the GP, the cost is affordable (I remember something like 100 roupies) and I've been hospitalise for a kidney stone one night in a private hospital, it was 1300 roupies plus medication something like 200 roupies. Lots of people think India is a third world country but for certain important things it's work better than USA! Bharat jaya hai!
In Belgium we have approximately the same system. Part of the taxes on our income are allocated to health. On top of that, we must take out mutual insurance, which reimburses differently depending on your family situation ( I pay 13€ a month for it) . For my part, being a widow, I have one of the highest reimbursement rates, mother being a pensioner benefits from the same advantage. I have two chronic illnesses and all the medications for them are paid directly at the pharmacy by the mutual insurance company. Mom had cancer and was operated on at the end of 2022 and then underwent chemo for 6 months and for all that the bill she had to pay was €800 (that seems like a lot to us but I'm sure it looks like a trifle for Americans)
I have an anekdote. My very old mother was alone for 2 weeks and I asked them to bring food and check on her daily. They brought her a meal with 3 courses and fruit with a check if everything was alright and it costs me 10€ a day and we aren’t even French. Down the road there s an old blind French lady. They come everyday to check on her, bring her food and have a walk. All because she could live in her house instead of a home.
I’m french, i got a huge inflamation in my pancreas. I got a cat scan, surgery, medicine and i paid 9€. I don’t even know how the americans do it, it honestly scares me.
The private component of French health care is totally integrated into the state system. It complements it. Hence the name "complémentaire". Costs are reimbursed seamlessly and divided between the state and the assurance company. For example the cost of a visit to your general practitioner, 25€, is 70% reimbursed by the state and 30% by your assurance company.
I worked six years for a parisian hospital specialized in rare child deceases. Some of the doctors were the best in their speciality. Some rich peoples were travelling from other countries in private jets to see those doctors for their kids. And right after them... very poor french families who paid nothing and had the exact same wonderful doctors. I was really proud to see that. 😊
France's healthcare system has been severely degraded. For decades, the medical lobbies enforced a "numerus clausus" for medical studies. End result : with the boomers entering retirement there are growing needs AND a shortage of doctors. If you are looking for a dermatologist, you may have to wait for months before getting an appointment.
As a French : I was involved in a workplace accident. Broke my ankle at my job, declared it, been on medical leave for 45 days soon, all medical expenses paid for. Salary paid up to 80% by our healthcare.
Italian: No, I don't think even in France the doctor comes to visit you at home for a cold. It comes if you have a high fever, if you are not in a condition to move, etc. In short, if you are not serious enough to go to hospital but you are really sick. I called him once for an allergic crisis and a couple of times for flu and bronchitis with high fever. Cold is not enough.
I can confirm. They will only visit you if you have a serious issue that isn't life-threatening, or if you are a senior or the patient is a children (and even that is getting more and more hard to get).
no, but u can use the "sos medecin" service, some kind of emergency doctor, which allows u to see a doctor at night or during weekend!! They visit u at home if it cant be otherwise.if its possible ,they ask u to drive to the doctors office ( 5 minutes only for me where i live.). And there is always a pharmacy open all night in the city, so u can buy ur medicines after seeing the doctor!! the price is almost the same as ur usual doctor.
What is quite incomprehensible is that the citizens of the USA pay expensively for their health expenses, they are certainly those who pay the most in the world, and yet their health system does not satisfy them. There is inevitably an ideological problem: market logic and free competition don't work in health matters, it is a huge waste because it is not rationalized. And all because of ideological blindness... I will give my French example, like others: I had cancer with metastasis, I underwent 7 surgical operations and 3 courses of chemotherapy in 4 years, not counting CT scans, MRIs, biological examinations and specialists consultations (cardiologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, even dermatologist...) and I have never had to pay a cent for all of this (but I have always paid my contributions). And what's more, I have been on sick leave for a total of 31 months over the last 4 years, receiving 2/3 of my salary...
I can't but wonder how often you say that you are actually sick. I mean, yes, with a toddler in the house one might get more often sick than usual, but still it seems quite frequent to me. I had a mild cold that lasted about a week just once last year. That was it. Nothing else. I mingle with people every day, at work, when shopping, etc. I think, three things are mainly responsible for getting sick (primarily colds, I presume) on a regular basis: 1. Having A/C everywhere. 2. Taking antibiotics for every little sneeze. Antibiotics are pretty useless against most virus based infections. They only help efficiently against bacteria (like pneumonia, or tonsillitis). By too much antibiotics intake you ruin your complete intestinal microflora, a thing very important to your immune system. 3. Bad, unhealthy eating habits.
I'm french and i went to the eye doctor today because my left eye hurts. They checked my eyesight and gave me a new prescription for my glasses, then they checked my eye and gave me prescription to buy medicine for that too. In the end I didn't pay, my inssurance did. When i'll go get the medicine, i'll etheir pay around 5euros or not at all, it dependes on if my inssurance pays the full price or not
I have to go for an X-ray tomorrow in Canada. It’s free. I had to have an X-ray in Peru once with no insurance and the entire visit, doctors, X-ray and wrapping my ankle was under $75 Canadian. I almost ALWAYS make sure I have health insurance when I travel to the USA. my mother in law had to go the hospital for her diabetes down there for ONE night and it was over $22,000 USD!
Finland here. My daughter went to France as an au pair. She asked about health insurance. I told her to expect better care for less in France (as an EU citizen).
I'm French, I lived abroad for several years, but I was happy to be back in France when I found out I was ill. I suffer from chronic myeloid leukemia, and I don't know what it's like in the USA, but here I have treatment for life, free of charge. However, I know how much it costs because it's indicated on the bills; around 2000€ per month. What's more, when you suffer from a long-term pathology, you're covered by a system of our health insurance called “affection de longue durée” (long-term illness), which covers all health expenses linked to the illness, including the side effects of the medication. In short, I don't regret living in France for a second.
I've lived as a Brit in France for over 20 years. I have always found the speed, efficiency and cost to be great. I have some conditions considered as 'permanent', and any treatment related to them is 100% free. For instance, I lost my balance and fell down a flight of granite stairs a couple of years ago. The fall was considered as being as a result of my permanent conditions and I spent 2 weeks in the ICU and a week under observation. I was x-rayed, scanned and operated on countless times and when I finally left hospital, not a centime to pay. As others have mentioned, most people have a 'mutuelle', which is a top-up insurance when the govt doesn't pay 100% for certain treatments/medications. My mutuelle costs me €55/month and for someone who needs many medications (a number outside of my 100% cover), this is a massive saving on prescriptions and essentially makes them free, whatever the medication/treatment. Oh, and to get mutuelle 'insurance', there are no questionnaires to fill asking about pre-existing conditions...
Yeah, pre-existing conditions are considered 'permanentes', ie. Affection de Longue Durée. Covered 100% by the system. We do pay a lot, but god, do we get our money back when we need it.
I'm French, and with my conditions of living, I'm covered by a "70-30" system. It's mean that's 70% of my medical expenses are covered by the French Social Security and 30% by my Private Inssurance. In practice, if I go to see my Referent Doctor for anything, I will pay 5€ for the visit and nothing for the meds, then the 5€ will be refund to me by my Private Inssurance two to three days later. As for my Private Inssurance, it is owned by my Bank and cost me about 30€ a month, covered every medical cares with the exception of Dental Care, Optic Care and Plastic Surgery (No system cover Plastic Surgery in France).
Poland is not as rich as France or USA, but if I go to the hospital and I stay there, say, a week or two or three - and during this time I have a lot of tests such as X-ray or tomography, I pay nothing. NOTHING. ZERO. Z-E-R-O!
My brother had an auto-immune illnesse which coule have killed him. The healing needs a product costing 30000€/day for a week. If it wasn't for the french healthcare, he would be dead now.
7:45 to give an example as a French person, last week I went to my GP. At the end of the consultation, he asked me to pay 32 euros (that's his turnover, it's a practice, therefore a company). Of these 32 euros, 20 were reimbursed to me by social security directly into my account and the rest was reimbursed to me by my mutual insurance company (which I pay every month, but my boss pays part of it) finally, I have a few euros left to pay, it's not huge. of course, the amount of the consultation varies depending on the consultation and the type of practitioner. For example, for the dentist, I pay around 45 euros per consultation, and almost half is reimbursed. For the dentist it's different, he doesn't pay the Value Added Tax because his equipment is too expensive, he would have been obliged to pass this cost on to the price of his service and this would have obliged social security to reimburse more. and in France regardless of nationality, the price is the same for everyone. but this system has limits: for example for a dental quote, social security has a list of dental services that are reimbursed or not: if it is a treatment that it considers to be aesthetic, it will not cover it but if it is not, it will take up to 3/4 of the cost of the quote that the doctor will have given. and it is up to the patient to see if their mutual insurance covers the rest. The unfortunate thing is that for some patients, the aesthetics may not be the case, and so they end up paying several thousand euros for dental care themselves.
It's interesting that the country with the most expensive health care in the world doesn't want to switch to universal coverage because it would be "too expensive", while that's what the rest of the civilized world does, and it's less expensive everywhere. I understand that it's a different culture, and there are other things in the way, but there's something there. A surprisingly big portion of the cost in the US is administrative... because of how complex it is to manage all the insurance issues. Doctors spend 50% of their time on that (and are frustrated by this) and hospitals have more administrators than medical staff. That's a massive cost that literally disappears the second you have universal coverage.
I have quite a bit to say, here. Social security, while covering everyone, doesn't cover everything, for the general group. It's like, 70% of the bill, with every price on the bill being regulated. The best example for this is the drugs : a pharmacist friend told me that some drugs would cost thousands of euros, but with social security coverage it only ends up costing like 5/10€. But since people only see the 5/10€, they complain about the price whenever it slightly rises. Insurances cover part or all of what the social security doesn't cover. Going to the ER without insurance cost me 17 or 18€, but with insurance I wouldn't have had to pay anything. Same for the doctor, drugs, etc. And that ER visit included getting an x-ray (which was not in any way factored in the "bill"). Going to the doctor a bit later the same year cost me more, around 25€ for the visit alone. I had to make an appointment, the earliest one available was less than 3h later. Oh, and it was a doctor from "SOS Médecins", meaning not a family doctor but one that was called whenever people didn't have access to their family doctor or had an emergency that didn't need going to the ER. But including the drugs, brace, and both visits, my total health bills in that year were about 60€. Because I didn't have insurance. Since then, I've transitioned from being a student to being searching for a job. And I now qualify for a different version of social security, which includes everything up to a certain degree (if there's a choice between two good options, the cheaper one will be covered but the other probably won't). All of this means that when we are sick, we get it checked out. First by our family doctor (or another general doctor) and if that doctor feels like we need something more, he writes a referral to a specialist. Meaning that there's less chance that we let a big sickness (like, say, diabetes) kill us. The medicine being also covered means that we can easily afford to get treated, be it for a broken leg or a bad cough. Which leads to a more healthy country, thus able to be more productive. On the other hand, I'll be fair, things that are small (like a small cough, puking a bit, stuff like that) are often left to heal themselves, but if it lasts too long without change we'd go to the doctor. Whereas I feel like in the US, you'd learn to live with it (for a small cough, at least, doubt you'd live with puking every day)
This is the reason why I don’t cry about my salary cut a lot here in France. Whenever I go to the doctor I almost pay nothing and I know that others are benefiting from it.
It's precisely this "others are benefiting from it" that the capitalist American system can't get nor accept. "Why should I pay for others with my hard-earned money?" It's called caring, mate.
I'm from Romania, my dad( unfortunately passed away), had cancer, he got lots of help because he paid his share when working, but just think he fought that for 13 years! With the help of his health insurance as a worker!
You asked about stories of care in France, I'm in pretty good health, but can give two examples. 1 : When I was 11, i fell off my bed then went back to sleep, in the morning I could barely move, so my parents assumed I got hurt when I fell and didn't feel it immediately. They drove me to the nearest clinic (about 20 min away from home and I lived in a really small town back then), we waited an hour there and I was taken for an X ray. Turns out, I had a broken rib, I just got some medication for the pain for a few weeks and that was it. If my parents paid anything for the whole thing, it must have been less than 10 euros total, and only because we had a pretty basic insurance. 2 : A year ago, I went to my family doctor because of some neck pains I had. I went to a physiotherapist 2 times a week for a month and a half to get my neck massaged and some reeducation on how to move and stretch it to fix it. I'm a poor student, it cost me 5€ at the family doctor and that was it. Even better, for those 5€, he diagnosed another problem of mine and it also got treated as well. All this to say, I know for Americans, spending thousands of dollars on medical expences seems normal, but to us, this is the craziest sh*t ever. Like, if Walter White had been French, he simply would have had his cancer treated for no expense and no need to break bad
In basic : you mainly don’t have to pay anything, 70% is covered by the national system and the rest by your mutuelle (private complement insurance) who cost from 20 to 50 € per month ( sometime little more)
I suffered a pulmonary embolism back in 2005 and spent 4 days in the Pulmonary Intensive Care unit at the HEGP (one of the more modern hospitals) in Paris. Not only did I continue to get paid 100% by my employer (the government paid them back), but my hospital stay cost a grand total of €14. Here in the US, with the best health insurance that my job can offer, even a simple visit to Urgent Care is a minimum $60 copay and that's just to be *seen*.
I there I'm French. To get a little more deeper in the explanation, the income in french is heavily taxed to pay the health system. Approx 1/4 of your income is taxe directly before you get your money to pay the system. Meaning that everybody is paid less than in the us. But every one get access to the same rights even if the taxes are proportionnal to your income. Meaning you are engineer you will get paid ~40k€/year and on that you will get only 25k€/year. 10k€ will be use to finance health system and 5k€ will be collected for the retirement. If you get sick or not you're paying same.
Depuis quand payez vous votre assurance voiture ? Votre assurance maison ? Combien d’accident ou d’incendie ? C’est le principe de l’assurance. Pour sa voiture et sa maison, ça ne dérange personne, mais pour sa santé… illogisme
Here in DK, my GF was in a bad car accident, and spent multiple days at the hospital, countless CT scans, staying in single person room, she was seen immediately, got morphine and other pills for a couple of weeks, paid 0. A month earlier, she got too drunk at a party, and fell, hitting something sharp, so got a flesh wound at her chin, spent a couple hours waiting in the ER (after being quickly seen by a nurse first ofc), got stiches, paid 0. I had a bad eye infection (not virus/bacteria), required daily visits to the Hospital, lots of checks, and tests, an hour or two waiting time initially, the rest of the time, seen within an hour, in total about 6 visits at the hospital, paid 0. Follow up checks at her/my general practitioner, paying 0 each time. People in my country usually give our healthcare system a bad name, but honestly from what I have experienced, I'm super happy for what we got. (not a lack of skills/standard, just slightly longer waiting times due to lower staffing than ideal).
In France, after Belgium and the Netherlands, I'd say the system is second to none. My GP requires an appointment if you come in the monrning or you can just swing by after midday and take the wait for granted. Could be 5 minutes could be 3 hours. Got a couple of chronic conditions and that sort of eliminates the need for a mutuelle. Doctors know that and are not afraid too let you benefit if you are in that situation. If I need a referal, most of the times I don't even need to pose the question, he'll send me to the lab at least twice a year, I'll have my prescription for the next three months. A few times an ambulance needed to come, now that's something that's really mindblowing. We have the SAMU's which are basicly quick transports to the hospital and in really urgent cases they will send a SMUR, which is like a hospital on wheels, a SMUR is usually accompanied by firefighters for any heavy work. The SMUR will have a driver, a navigator a specialist, several nurses and is loaded with lifesaving monitoring equipment. Dentists, as where in The Netherlands the amount you can spend on a dentist is limited by the insurance, in France you can get basically everything done, no caps as long as the public system covers it, implants for ex. are not covered anymore but as there are other options and/or materials that are covered. The system is also divided into 3 sectors, the 1st is 100% public/general, the second is semi private but for those who cannot find a specialist in the 1st sector, the doctors in the 2nd sector may be the solution, mostly covered at 70% from the publuc sector but again for those who cannot afford it or have a chronic disease, the public system will cover the last 30% too. Sector 3 is private but also egulated by the public system. Essentially there's no reimbursements for that sector unless you have a mutuelle which covers part of that too. Then pharmacies. Pharmacies are all commercial enterprises, but medications are billed to the public system at a regulated price. usually covered at 65-70% by the public system and the other part by the mutuelle. The last 10 years, if I don't reckon gas or parking costs, I may have spent about 25 euro alltogether for some medications that weren't covered (anymore). We have more pharmacies than the US has Starbucks and McDonalds put together. They're everywhere, you'll find one in less than a 5 minute walk. Then the most common american argment; waiting times. This heavily depends on region/sector/specialism. some specialists can have crazy long waiting times, but almost always you can find an alternative. Closerby or further away, if you need care faster or urgently you will find no waiting times at all. Anyways, that's my view on the system. Get that cough taken care of man...and if I was an american I'd probably get a free consultation somewhere and get the prescriptiondrug online from anywhere in the world, as the save on a single pill might just cover the overnight UPS costs. I've been to the US several times and needed care there too, and the amounts I had to advance we're mindboggling. I mean 350 USD for a dental consultation? another 70 USD for a penniciline????
I spent 10 months in Boston for work. During a day at work, I got really sick, it turned out that I was having an attack of appendicitis and that I had to be operate. The operation went well, much less the final bill! 80k without ambulance! Fortunately, I had medical insurance from my employer in France which covered any medical expenses I might have in the United States. This insurance cost me 30 euros per month (30 euros more was paid by my employer). 80k for a day in the hospital and appendicitis!? Really??
That's insane. If I had that kind of money, I'd quit my job for a year, buy an apartment and find a more relaxed job to start enjoying life.
@@xxDrain
Not just insane, I actually think it's horrific, appalling and horrendous - assuming you are talking about the 80K charge for a simple operation and one day in hospital !!! ??? And WITHOUT an ambulance either - DUH!
I'm in Portugal. Three years ago my eight year old daughter had the same health issue. I paid 0€. And no issurance was needed.
I had that condition when I was 10... and it's often genetically inherited... imagine every generation getting a bill like that before even starting to make money.
And it's life threatening if not treated... would really suck to be uninsured in the US... there's not much of a choice when it's your kid is in danger.
@@xxDrain That's why so many US citizens are leaving the US. This is starting to become a problem, in Europe.
Dear USA, as long as you insist of getting stucked on the ”socialist” or ”communist” medicine, you’re on your own. Fun fact: in Europe public health is viewed the same way as the police or the military. No one in their right mind would consider to have a privately paid police force (or, could that be like a business possibility?). It is a mystery that you insist of paying the most to get the least.
Did you know that there are privately owned prisons in the US where the inmates are used as slave labor in the US?
The US mentality about healthcare and taxes is crazy. I've read or watched stuff about differences between healthcare, a lot, and when it comes to this, they always comes up with the same excuses : "Why would I pay more taxes to pay for someone else's healthcare ?".
Yeah, we gey it. In the legend, USA is the country of the Self-made Man (or woman). People come here to achieve their dreams and they made it themselves. The mentality is so self-centered, from the outside it looks like empathy is something that almost don't exist at all.
You payed stupid taxes on so many things. You pay astronomical tips because restaurants and such don't even pay enough their workers. But you'd refuse a system in which you pay to actually helps people who have no luck in life ?
Anyone can have a need for healthcare, at any point. Disease, car accident, broken bones, organs troubles, whatever the fuck can happen. And if that happens to you, you'd be damn happy to pay nothing, or very little. I fins it crazy to spend couples hundreds $ for a ambulance ride. I'm damn glad I pay so that people who are having their worst time in their life can actually think about getting better instead of worrying about how their whole life is ruined because of an unfortunate moment. That's empathy and not some american egocentrical shit
@@souillonsousion8687 Besides, all of their healthcare system is centered around greed; does it really cost the hospital hundreds of dollars to give you an ambulance ride ? Besides, it costs 2-4 $ to produce a vial of insulin... and they're keeping a *5000%* margin of profit on it ? Seriously, that's not just greedy at this point, that's evil
@@souillonsousion8687 you're one of those heroes that doesn't wear a cape
Nah this is the real capitalism where bribery is called lobbying which is a form of corruption.
I'm French. My mum had cancer a few years ago. she got all her hospital bills and chimio threatments taken care of for free. I'm just so grateful to our system. we complain a lot and strike a lot but it has a lot to do with us not wanting to give up on all these amazing advantages.
We complain to keep these rights
Class struggle is real. Eveyrthing we enjoy we fought for in the past and every days since then.
not free, but we are happy to participate; hope she is well
Instead of being grateful, French people only cry and whine, they can't put things into perspective, and Im French btw
"For free"
Americans will be familiar with the "it's not free, it's paid by others" but in the case of France it's not even paid by others, other don't have that money so it's pilled up on top of the current debt for future generations to pay (which they will have to because our debt increases faster than our GDP).
Basically his mother got it for free so that his daughter won't get anything, how compassionate !
"these amazing advantages" will be paid by my generation and our children after us, amazing, i'm so grateful for this system. Boomers and their allies are the plague of this country.
as a french who suffers from chronic pain and who lives below the poverty line, I'm pretty happy with our health system. It's far from perfect, but i haven't seen one that beats it so far.
Same here... if i was born in the US, i would be bankrupt because of my health issues
As a french worker that pays for our system and is healthy enougth to not benefit much from it until now, I am proud to help people in need like you. My personal take on it is that we need to help each others as humans, and who is more in need than someone with chronic pain, perhaps unable to work because of it? A contrario from united states (but understand that I respect the difference between our visions) we tend to think everyone should be cured if possible, no matter the cost. We see that cost a bit like the army budget : big but necessary for everyone.
Same here... if i was in the USA, i would be dead 15 years ago.
Yep, very grateful for the CSS.
@@Rufax59 The way I like to describe the difference in mindset between the US and France : Americans want the money to go to those who deserve it; we French want the money to go to those who need it. Obviously both have arguments for them, but I'm still horrified at the American idea of me first and anyone else after. It's most likely cultural differences.
It is still completely crazy to think that the arguably richest country in the world takes such little care of its citizens.
This is a serious anomaly.
it's a national disgrace. but sadly, many things in the US don't work properly and the voters seem determined to keep it that way or make it even worse
It's a thing that has always baffled me: how the fuck the richest country on Earth and in history is completely incapable to implement a system that other less wealthy countries have?
@@adto5942its a reason why they are rich , those health security cost quite a lot , each dollars used to take care of unwealthy is less shell for US army.
I heard some military US military planes have 25k dollar toilet seats, can´t have healthcare with that.
It's not an anomaly. The USA is "rich" because its ruling governments cater to and kowtow to the Robber Baron Rich (Which I define as "worth" $50M+) and predatory capitalism. I point out that there are several historic "poor" countries (Phillipines and Argentina for instance) where there was an extreme rich/poor disparity which the USA is like in terms of power disparity but not culture.
It makes me happy that the French are so proud of their system. From what I heard in this video it looks very nice, even way better then the German system, which is already a paradise in comparison to the US system. Greeting from your biggest eastern neighbour 🇩🇪🤝🇫🇷😊
Yes I agree but the french system is much more expensive than the German one.
@@Itsme-xf7sxAnd a lot better than the German one.
🇩🇪❤❤❤🇫🇷
Danke schön mein Freund ! 🇨🇵🤝🇩🇪
I love how everybody is arguing how the other system has better aspects. That truly shows how far we have come from WW2 as Europeans :)@@cegesh1459
I live in France as a foreigner, and had a complete medical crisis this week. This Tuesday, out of the blue within the matter of a few minutes, I collapsed at home and was unable to get up with severe vomitting. It was extremely scary, and just before loosing consciousness, I managed to crawl to the telephone and phoned a friend for help. He informed the firemen, and my last thought was that I do not want them to smash my door, so I crawled to the door and opened it, and then collapsed at the intrance. To make it short: I got rushed by 4 firemen to the nearest hospital within minutes, got my blood checked, cardiac checks etc etc I do not even know what as I was unconscious. The tests came back well, but my situation was bad. Then one doctor found out it was an inflammation of a nerve in the ear responsible for balance and equilibrium. they then transfered me to another hospital, a special unit, where I got a private room with two beds. I was there for two nights, first night alone, the second I shared with another lady. All the time at both hospitals I had constant infusions of nutrion and medication, got cared for, had lots of tests done, etc etc and not once did anyone mention bills.I was stable within three days, after high corticone treatment intravenous. Everybody was extremely friendly, helpful and kind. Money is never an issue, it is the person and its health that counts. I have not paid one cent. I even got excellent French food. Which I could not eat.... One important thing to mention: France does not have only the best health care, and a very humane one, but more important also the best doctors on the same level as American doctors. That is very important too. That is my little experience this week. I am at home almost fine now. The condition I had is called Neuritis vestibularis, quite rare, can happen to anyone at any age, and very unpleasant. It is a viral inflammation. Thank goodness I was not in America but in France. P.S.: I forgot to mention that today I found out that the bill for all of it inclusive would have been a little over 5000 euros had I no medical aid, which everyone has.
So true 👍👍👍👍👍👍 (Same in Belgium) 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Since you live in France you probably know that this is at heavy cost : it costs a lot to the State, even though there is not enough staff is about every single department and some, especially nurses, are also underpaid
@@randomguy8107
Im in the medium hight income. Get balls and increase the cotisation of the medium and high income and stop trying to say we should make savings on people health.
Glad you got great care and hope you continue to feel better
@@randomguy8107 Yeah but it's a problem in many countries and I'd rather have my taxes go for healthcare than military tbh
Hi french here, i think you misunderstood him, 90% of french people do have insurance, but the poor have a state wide one. while workers have a private one.
It's more complicated, part of what is payed to the doctor for example is payed by the state, the other part is payed by the "mutuelle" (private insurance that you're employer must give you). Then you pay that 1€ (which is pretty recent, we used to pay ZERO).
And yes you can gat the "mutuelle" part payed by the State for free of for a symbolic Euro per month if you're poor. I actually was a beneficiary of this 1€ system when I came back after working in the US and while training for a new job (I didn't know it exists before I googled it)
@@OhDuur the CSS (state mutuelle) is free if you have less than 600 something euro a month.
Not exactly.
We are ALL covered by sécurité sociale. The poorer have CMU.
Anyone who works a salaried job has a mutuelle covered by their employers, independents have their own. Poor people don't have mutuelle (aka secondary private health insurance) but pay NOTHING when they go to the doctor
I had a carte vital in France as a pensioner on low income. But when I wanted to apply for residency I had to prove I wasn't using the system. So I paid for insurance it cost me 250 each month. That's extortionate. Plus, the French system is awful have to keep so much paperwork and take it with you each time. You have to show ID and pay each time you see a doctor. I paid 15 euros each time.
I'm French and one of my aunts had final stage skin cancer and nobody was giving her more than a year to live.
Fortunately she met a doctor which registered her for an experimental treatment as anyway she had no other chances to survive. It cost her nothing and several years later not a single cancer cell left.
I love our health care system and would defend it till the end
Force à ta tante
@@YagizaSan mais elle a plus le cancer? "several years later not a single cancer cell left." sa veux dire quelle a réussi a battre le cancer?
Just for the anecdote: I live in France, we struggled 5 years to have a kid, did multiple in vitro fecondations, along with countless visits to specialists... I cost us 100 euros / year which was to keep embyros on the freezer for one more year... At the end it worked out fine and we succeeded.
To be fair, that's a luxury that no health insurance should cover
@@sushi777300 Maybe in the US it is considered a luxury. But since it is a medical issue, it is not in most of Europe. It is just a medical condition and you get treatment for it.
@sushi777300 who are you to decide that helping a couple conceiving a child is a luxury ? Is it also a luxury to save an old person from cancer? Or a smoker from a lung disease ?
@@sushi777300 Nope, your vision is just skewed
@@sushi777300being able to have a child is NOT a luxury. Everyone should be able to have the same opportunities to have a child. People should be treated with equity. If that means some people need extra help to conceive, then I'd be happy for my taxes to help them.
In france :
You're a resident either french or foreigner ->you get covered by the state
If you work or have some money ->you get voluntary insurance
If you're poor -> state provides voluntary insurance for you
I mean that that's why 99% of french are covered by both the universal system and voluntary insurance plans
As I dual French/British national living in France for the past 25 years, I have to agree that our health care system is pretty good but certainly not perfect. If you are in employment, you will pay into a private health insurance plan which should cover most, if not all, of your health care which is not covered by the social security (often the remaining 30%) this depends upon the type of plan your employer proposes. Dental care (except implants unfortunately), new eye glasses every 2 years including bi-focals, hospital care, blood tests, x-rays, prescription medicine is basically covered and we can choose our specialist anywhere in France. However, we do pay for it through high taxes and there are areas of France which are becoming medical deserts due to a shortage of professionals which the government needs to address through higher wages and wider training access. We are rightly proud of our health care but realise that it needs close attention and steady reform. Nobody here wants the American system and we cannot imagine how you guys cope. I don't envy the US system one bit!
Il y a des déserts médicaux en raison du nombre de formation autorisé par an. Les places sont limités.
@@astronotics531 pas seulement.
Il y a une moins grande densité de population dans ces endroits, les médecins sont rémunérés au nombre de patients qui viennent les voir. Tu comprends que les nouveaux diplômés n'ont pas envie de s'exiler dans des trous pommés où ils n'auront certainement pas un salaire à la hauteur de leur études et responsabilités.
@@Hyxtrem Les deux départements qui sont les plus gros déserts médicaux (en personnels de santé par habitants) : le 93 et le 75. Il y a un problème à la fois de numerus closus (places en formation) et d'attractivité de certains départements.
@@lefol2206 le problème ne se pose pas seulement en personnel de santé par habitant; la réalité c'est qu'il y a des gens qui font 2h de route pour trouver un hopital faute de médecin, et en 2h il peut s'en passer des choses.
The medical deserts exist everywhere. Mostly rural areas because people simply don't want to live in those areas. Others because real estate is simply too expensive. The Americans pay in taxes more than twice more what the French pay for their Healthcare system. And they have to pay an expensive healthcare insurance on top plus ridiculous bills related to Healthcare on top. In other words, the taxes is a strawman argument.
I'm French, went to Belgium for the New Year, dislocated my shoulder there and got to the hospital. Ambulance, X-ray before and after putting my shoulder back in place, care... I didn't pay a thing. I expect to receive some bill sometime but thanks to the health system (and my European health card maybe ?) I'm not worried it's going to be expensive. I'm not sure which is the best but I'm glad most of Europe has this kind of healthcare system
Dislocating a shoulder on New Year Eve ? Now that must be a story to tell lmao
Cool, maintenant dis nous comment tu t'es déboité l'épaule au Nouvel An??
Oui, c'était grâce à votre Carte Européenne. J'ai dû aller à l'hôpital aussi alors que j'étais en Espagne et je n'ai rien payé justement parce que j'avais cette carte.
@@ninalempicka2948 Je savais que cette épaule était fragile depuis longtemps mais c'était vraiment un truc de merde, 3h du matin au FCKNYE sur une connerie je mets tout mon poids sur mon bras sur un sol glissant, ça part dans une direction pas normale... Grosse douleur mais je me suis dit que ça allait jusqu'à ce que mes potes me fassent remarquer que mon épaule est pas là où elle devait etre... Je commence la rééducation au kiné cette semaine mdr
Heureusement pour toi que t'avais une carte européenne d'assurance maladie ... sinon t'aurais payé ;)
Hello Ryan !
It's mandatory for French companies to offer complementary health insurance (mutuelle in French) since 2018 and it's also mandatory for employees to have one. Usually couples decide and opt for the one with the best reimbursement and they go under the plan of their partner or their own. A regular doctor's meeting is about 25€ but most of the time (from my experience) I do not even have to advance, just my social security card and complementary health insurance take the job directly. If I have to advance it's reimbursed entirely.
For bigger things like dentist, glasses or hearing aid, there is also a law where the specialist HAVE to offer you an option that is entirely reimbursed (0€ left to pay for you). It's maybe not the fanciest glasses frame or the smallest hearing aid for instance but it'll do and it'll be 0€ for you.
What about unemployed people, children and the elderly?
@@emilydavison2053 as a child you’re covered under social security and your parents plan + the state has special free meetings for kids for like dental.
Unemployed it depends the situation but you benefit from already reimbursement of social security so you just have to pay the part that would usually be covered by your Mutuelle for a regular doctor note ie: 7.5€ left out of the 25.
For elderly, Social security + usually they opt for dedicated mutuelle for seniors (bit more pricey)
@@emilydavison2053 Unemployed people are covered by the general fund. Retirees are covered by their previous employer's fund. Children are covered by their parents' fund. Then, as explained, you may need a private insurance to cover all the expenses.
So aiming for A healthcare for average Jean while triple A for those who can pay private?
@@emilydavison2053 Poor people are double covered by the French state, the general found and the complementary part (normaly paid by insurances).
Also french insurances are mostly non profit insurance and very cheap.
I live in France and can confirm that the doctor visiting is a thing, but there are conditions, either it's an emergency, like a kid with a very bad fever, or a senior person who can't move easily, the doctor won't visit anyone at any condition, that would be insane and impractical!
What's more, the doctor may charge more for a home visit, and if it wasn't necessary, your insurance might not cover it completely.
SOS Médecins does house visits, it's still covered by social security, but they charge more I think.
@@AshleysMommy
Yes it's efficient but you need to live in a big city, in country or mountain (where I live) no SOS Médecins and none doctor visits at home. So you need to go there or call the SAMU to bring you to the hospital (1h20 from home)... I've lived at the time when EVERY doctors where able to home visit, nowadays it's finish...
@@victoriagossani8523 I live in Val d'Oise, so I guess it's different than in more rural areas. I'm 42 and I remember when I was little our family doctor did house visits, I think the last time we had a regular doctor do a house visit was somewhere around 2000.
@@AshleysMommy I've worked 15 years as "auxiliaire de vie", I had many "customers", and have worked in several cities, (Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, Sarlat and Paris) and all of my "customers" had doctors that home visites. The last was in Paris, her doctor was visiting her every week, it was beginning of 2020 (I've stop my activity in May 2020) . IMO the covid has given to the doctors a good opportunity to stop this service (perhaps some old doctors still do it...). I've learn lately that it has began before covid but I've never encounter this situation before it. It's a shame; even if some patients took advantage on this service without real good reasons but the laziness, others really needed it.
France is not the exception. Most of Europe works like that. Funny thing: we still have Health Insurance companies. And they make good business. The public system is there, so they cannot exhort you like in USA, because you can always opt out and go to public health system. So their only way to survive is to have good quality. Now, that will blow your mind: people that can afford it uses the private health system (that costs, say, a deductible $100-$300 per family) for minor things. Dermatologists, muscular pains, X-Rays or bold tests that are asked for by your PUBLIC doctor... all those kind of stuff. They are normally faster than public system, and... you know... you pay for it so you better use it! That relieves some work from the public system and, by comparison, forces the public system to stay at a good level.
BUT... for anything serious... you trust your PUBLIC system! The best doctors work for public, so, if you have cancer, a trauma or any hearth condition... you go to the public system.
In France, you don't "opt out and go to public system", you ALWAYS benefit from the public system, and can take additonal private insurance to get better reimbursment in some areas.We don't even call it "health insurrance", but "complémentaire santé", "health complementary", because it's always a complement on top of the public system.
@@Sanglyonnice ❤
Here in Malaysia, you just need to pay USD0.25 per visit & free medicines. If you are warded, the government hospital will charge you USD0.75 - USD1 staying per night n 3-4 meals included. If you need to attend any post hospitalisation treatment or appointment, it would be absolutely free of charge.
If you are a person in special need ( handicap ) or senior citizen - no charges at all till you die.
Hey Ryan, live in France and have lived in the US. The French healthcare system is amazing. Not only are the costs so much better but so is the quality of care and the outcomes. Much better access and shorter waiting times. France has more physicians per capita and has better availability and distribution of doctors for rural areas.
Pourtant dans les petits villages y’a plus assez de médecins ils partent tous et globalement y ‘en a pas assez. C’est impossible de trouver un médecin traitant qui t’accepte
and yet we are under staffed doctor wise, but yeah it is much better than anywhere else
@@etiennelebeauf5068 C'est exact, cependant c'est largement pire aux Etats-Unis. Ceci dit, ce n'est pas une raison pour qu'on ne se mobilise pas contre les déserts médicaux ici et qu'on honore l'héritage d'Ambroise Croizat (un communiste, quelle horreur (sarcasme) !).
@@etiennelebeauf5068 Faut comparer ce qui est comparable, selon les USA eux mêmes certains états ont des classements qui se comparent au Soudan ou des pays en crise durable. On connait des difficultés c'est vrai et t'as raison d'en parler pour nuancer ce pseudo paradis médical ( surtout avec les tensions hospitalières ), mais faut voir les échelles de comparaison. Un homme malade dans l'état le plus médicalement délabré aux USA et le département français le plus délabré pour ce sujet ( surement Creuse/Lozere/Correze ) je signe direct pour les départements français. Faut se rendre compte que des américains ne vont pas au médecins pendant 10 ans parfois AVEC un problème qui les gène mais qu'il ne solutionne pas à cause des frais exorbitants. Faut vraiment avoir des soins extrêmement dangereux pour rivaliser avec ... Pas de soins du tout disponible. Après peut être que je me trompe mais ça me parait juste incomparable, on pourrait dire que bizarrement notre systéme tend plus vers celui des USA que l'inverse, toutes proportions gardées.
@@etiennelebeauf5068 On s'en fou de ces trous pommes en vrai.
I'm french and quadriplegic. Since it is a long-term affection, all treatments related to my disability are fully covered by the social security. So basically, medicine, visits to the doctor and weekly kinesitherapy is all free. Since last year, I got a job in a big company that provide additional health insurance for ma, my wife and my kids. Since then, it has fully covered all our medical expenses that were left after the social security, including visit to specialists, glasses, dental care, and more.
About child care, I was shocked by how much it cost in the US and I was horrified to see that in some hospitals, the ptrent were even charged for holding their newborn babies. In France, we get paid when we get children (the more children you have, the more money you get).
A couple of prices:
- seeing a doctor: 25 euros
- seeing a specialist: 60 euros
- most medicine cost a dozen euros or less
En effet il y a les allocations familiales qui commencent au 2ème enfants. Il y a des déductions d'impôts pour les élèves selon l'âge et une demi part par enfant , il y a les primes de rentrée scolaire, le congés parental d'éducation, le congés maternité et paternité, les primes parent isolé, ... Les crèches sont chères mais déductibles. Les écoles sont gratuites, les livres sont gratuits, un ordi est fourni, on peut manger à la cantine pour quelques euros voir gratuitement selon les revenus... Malgré cela la natalité ne cesse de baisser. Nous sommes à moins de 2 enfants par femmes, et cela n'assure plus le renouvellement de population, qui forcément vieillie, et il y a de plus en plus de maladies lié à l'age, car la durée de vie augmente (Homme 80 ans Femme 85,7 ans) et les impôts montent car il y a moins d'actifs pour cotiser, la sécu sombre ... Pour les médecins la loi de Macron de 2019 devrait se ressentir d'ici 2027. Il faut le temps de former les nouveaux médecins. Le problème est : faut il plus accepter de migrants qui feront des enfants, et cotiseront en travaillant ? ou bien augmenter la durée de 3 ans max ou le montant du congés parental 398 euros ? Je crois qu'il ya une nouvelle loi qui arrive, congé parental mieux payé mais moins longtemps.
MERCI LA FRANCE. LA CARTE VITALE, L'ASSURANCE MALADIE ET LES DENTISTES QUALIFIES ❤
Mais putain c'est pas gratuit , regarde ta fiche de paye c'est hyper cher
@@morphilou78c’est rien mon gâté comparer aux autres pays … c’est quasi gratuit et rembourser à 70% on paye pratiquement rien
@@solome4411 regarde les assurances des autres pays c'est une fraction des impots que tu paye pour la secu
@@morphilou78c'est pas gratuit et justement, c'est avec cet argent que nous payons pour tout le monde qui ne travaille pas ou ne peut pas travailler : retraités, malades, handicapés, personnes qui ont eu un accident, une maladie grave qui les empêchent de travailler pour le moment, les enfants, etc.
@@morphilou78ceci putain ça rend fou de croire que c'est "gratuit"
I love the words I once heard "The universal healthcare is so difficult that only 32 of 33 developed countries managed to make it work"
🤓 Actually that's 39 of 40 but I tried to save the message untouched
I live partly in France and partly in the Netherlands. Compared to the system in the US ours is great. But I think you need to realize it is more then the healthcare system alone. For example, studying here is, compared to the US, cheap. So you can actually study to be a healthcare professional without ending up with a ridiculous amount of dept, so the salaries of those healthcare professionals can be more reasonable.
And, of course, governments and insurance companies can negotiate prices, which is mostly forbidden in the US. With hospitals, specialists and pharmaceuticals. For example: last year there was a special kind of medicine in the news for a rare disease, which an American pharmaceutical tried to sell for about 1.5 million euro a year per patient. So the health ministers of about 8 EU countries called each other, joined forces and negotiated together to buy this stuff a lot cheaper. Now it is available for those who need it.
Even the actual costs of medication (paid by insurance) is a lot less here then you guys in the US pays.
If you are sick, you go to a GP, a specialist or a hospital. Nobody thinks about the costs (only about their health) and nobody is going to be in huge dept or going bankrupt because of medical bills. The whole idea that Americans don’t go to a docter or don’t call an ambulance because of the costs is absurd to us.
Hi you should check out the prices of the schools in Europe compared to the US, it won't stop you from coughing though. Take care and thanks for the video :)
Im french and to make it more specific:
French health care is:
If you are poor you pay nothing and get all cares for free with no insurance.
If you are middle or rich
You pay an insurance per month
Could be with your job or other.
Social security pay 70% of the bill (doctor/hospital /analysis/drugs...)
And the other 30% is your insurance mostly of the time they pay around 20 /25% depends of the doctor you see
The insurance amount starts from around 20 euros to around 100 euros per months depends of your age, the older you are the more expensive it is, also if you choose a high rate for teeth for exemple some cares that are not considered as vital
People who have a chronic condition are 100% taking in charge
(Pregnancy included as long as you choose public care)
That's the care part
You also get paid by social security if you are not able to work for disease, as long as the doctor deliver you at least 3 days off work
Then you got maternity live:
For a first kid, the mother get fully paid until the baby turn 2 months and a half (just as if she was working) and then for 6 months she gets around 800 euros universal staying home, after 6 months she has to get back to work
For second child the same but instead of 6 months its 2 years.
Also if anyone from another country get sick in France, he can go to hospital for free.
French health care is amazing i really wish you american could get the same BUT you have to kept in mind that we are really charged on our wages, like on a 1800 euros wage, after social care tax went by you get 1400 euros final + annual wage tax that's why the richer you are, the more you pay.
Americans get taxed about the same but with none of the benefits. See you may think you pay a lot of tax cause you don’t like the way you feel about that money leaving your account buuuuut you basically don’t pay for anything. You don’t have to pay for school including university unless you want to go private. Meanwhile a random major in an American university is about 60k out of your pocket. Hence why pretty much every American is in debt in one way or another
My grandma have lung cancer and i will never be able to say how thanksfull i am that she can have acces to the best treatment in the world and the only complain she have is that the food in the hospital is bad.
VIVE LA FRANCE
I have just undergone 2 surgical procedures here in a public hospital in the suburb of Paris, the first to take samples for analysis and the second, the main one, for an operation that lasted 5 hours with a robot. Both operations were performed under general anaesthetic. I spent just 2 nights in hospital and everything went very well. I paid a total of €120 for a single room.
Hey, I just stumbled upon this mind-blowing video about France and its massive territories worldwide. It’s wild how we didn’t realize how big, well ... massive, I should say, France really is. The video, “Why France is Secretly the World’s 5th Biggest Country” by RealLifeLore, has been watched over 4.2 million times. You should totally do a reaction video on it and spill your thoughts. Seriously, it left me gobsmacked and I had no clue France was like that.
I'm French, a few years ago I had a seizure because of a benign brain tumor, in total I stayed in the hospital for a little more than 2 months for the tumor to be analaysed and removed, I only paid something like 30 euros once I got home because one the bandages I was using for my surgery scars wasn't included in social security, that's all, the ride to the hospital with the paramedics, the hospital room (which was one full room for myself, with tv), the multiple CT scans, the surgery and the medications after the surgery were all free. Now I'm monitored by doing a CT scan once a year, I pay for it but I am fully reimbursed a few days later. We like to complain a lot, but damn this is so reassuring knowing that I can get sick and not be in debt forever because of it (and I'm not even talking about the fact that I am allowed to get sick and not to go to work without losing any pay day)
Hello from France 🇫🇷 ! When I was still in school I really wanted to live in the United States (the American dream and all that) but even though our health care system is far from perfect I just can’t imagine spending any kind of money on a human right. I also looked at the electrical infrastructure, public transportation, etc and at the time Donald Trump just got elected so… Yeah now I live in Belgium but I go to France often thanks to our train network ! Also I spend 0€ in medical things per year yay 🎉
As a French, we use to laugh at one thing : a superb piece of art that is "breaking bad" couldn't just exist in my country : first episode, "I got cancer" "you have your carte vitale (card proving your social security rights) ?" "yep ?" "right, come on in, we'll treat it, no need to sell meth, zero fee to pay". less and less thrue btw, we're destroying it (and certainly not reimbursing homeopathy since a few years back, thanksfully).
I am French, we do pay for our health care, its just that compared to the US we pay next to nothing.
I am 33 and got only one major operation that I remember (I got another one before I was one that dont ask me) that operation bill was 2000€ my parent and I paid nothing the bill is mostly presented so people dont abuse the system
It's good that the bill ius presented, even if you don't have to pay you know what you got for "free" - acceptation of taxation and everything.
" we pay next to nothing " ... euhhh ...sur toute une carrière , tkt pas que ça chiffre ... Regarde bien la petite ligne sécu sur ta fiche de paye ;)
Après c'est sur , le jour où t'as un truc qui " devrait " couter 100.000 €, tu te dit que t'es remboursé de ce que t'as payé toutes ces années.
à titre perso j'ai 400€ de pris sur mes fiches de paye , après 20 ans de carrière les 100.000 € on en est plus très loin ...
Mais qui dit que j'en aurais besoin un jour ?
Je pense qu'on a un bon système ( une bonne base du moins ) , mais on devrait y ajouter un bonus/malus ... genre ceux qui l'utilisent peu sont en partie remboursés et ceux qui en abusent payent + cher pour compenser... ça calmerait certains qui prennent des arrêts maladie de 2 semaines aux frais de la princesse juste pour s'occuper du gamin pendant les vacances par exemple ^^
Why don’t we just cut to the chase and admit that the American healthcare system is atrocious and purely based on profit, while countries who actually have the patients best interests as a priority are far far better than the American system, do a video on the Australian medical system.
Re the cancer drug portion: it's true. When my Mum was suffering from cancer she was getting access to the latest and greatest experimental stuff from the US, where a single dose can run in the tens of thousands, if not the hundreds of thousands - and it was all paid for by the state. Also paid: a taxi to come pick her up from our house in the country and take her to the hospital outside Paris for chemo (about an hour and a half away), wait there and then bring her back.
This native Californian left in 2007 for the south of France. I wouldn't trade my life here for anywhere. I have numerous relatives in Canada and while it is much better than what you have, it certainly isn't what it was in my grandmother's day... You can't begin to imagine everything that is covered and all that is available.
I’ve been thinking of moving abroad for years- but was finishing my 20 years in military. Have pension and ready to leave- looking at Provence/Occitanie areas.
@@LeoLady3966 I am in the Languedoc and couldn't be happier anywhere. Provence is lovely as well. Each has much to offer. Here my dollars go farther and when I get the urge, Spain is less than an hour away. I wish you all the best in your journey.
I'm a Brit and I love our NHS but I haven't lived at home for like 15 years now. I have lived in Ireland, France and Denmark and let me tell you, France's healthcare system is awesome. Now I've left I truly miss it. What's even more awesome is Doctorlib. It's a tool set up to let you find any type of doctor anywhere in france. You can hold your documents there, make appointments, upload files, download letters from the dr, your prescriptions are stored there. It lets you search your area for the nearest or soonest appointment and it's just so super easy.
God I wish we had that here in Denmark.
"DOCTOLIB" dear Cheryl, and not "DOCTORLIB". Yes I know, it's a little bit weird that the letter "R" has disappeared in this word... 🤔
@@MoSkent1 I always get it wrong 😂
@@cherylhoggins1925 Ha ! Ha ! Don't worry, I was joking and there are more serious things than making this mistake... especially for a non-French woman ! 🤭
@@MoSkent1 Pas de problème, c’était drôle. Passer une bonne journée!
@@cherylhoggins1925 😘🇩🇰
I went to the emergency room in France at night because I vomited blood. I underwent a gastroscopy. The emergency room visit, the gastroscopy, and the meal before they sent me home cost me 8.50 euros
Personal story that I wanted to share, I'm not going to much in the details.
I'm french (from my father) and mexican (from my mother). My parents beeing married and living in France since 1995, my mother is french and is included in the french healthcare system.
Around 2015, my mother got a breast cancer.
Fairly easy, she was diagnosed, 2 weeks later she had her first chemio, did all the treatments and was cancer free a year later. She also had a breast removal, which can happen.
Everything was covered, from the treatment to the travel costs by car or ambulance, including the breast removal (and replacement) and the therapy (you know, risks of depression).
The only thing that my parents paid was the travel costs of my father ONLY IF he was not with my mother, and a nutritionist.
Around the same time, a mexican aunt had a cancer (I don't know which kind, and I didn't knew her at all).
They were a family gathering to see who could put money on the table to save that person.
The family couldn't buy the treatment. She died a year later.
In France, she would have received a treatment.
C’est ce qu’on appelle la solidarité, tout le monde paye ( assez peu ) et les malades qui en ont besoin sont soignés le mieux possible quels que soient leurs revenus.
Personne n’est immortel ou invincible…La santé : tout va bien jusqu’à ce que rien n’aille plus , qui peut savoir quelle maladie le frappera et quel coût aura le traitement …
Vendre sa maison, sa voiture, tous ses biens pour rembourser des soins …woaw…délirant !!!
I'm French and I'm a bit surprised our system is still considered one of the best with all the problems of the public hospitals that recently became blindingly obvious since the COVID. (to summarize : our leaders decided to make public hospitals become profit-driven companies instead of prioritizing curing people, leading to worse working conditions, lots of unnecessary paperwork, bad planning etc.).
It's nice to be reminded than even if it's been going downhill recently, it's still something to be proud of.
thanks for bringing this to the table i ve pointed this on my own comment but i felt like a party pooper lol
What most french fixating on their own problems don't realise is, when things go south at home, they go as badly or worse mostly everywhere else. We are still amongst the best (even with all the problems) in healthcare because everyone else is having it bad too. Just like inflation, our worst average was 6.7 a year while European average was 11,5 a year and UK 9.6 (Argentina and Turkey went up to 120%). Energy crisis: have you seen the prices increases in UK or Germany winter 2022 compared to our own EDF being capped? Traveling or looking at international news helps put things in perspective. After - effects of Covid, Ukraine, Inflation and Gaza did not hit only us, and hey did not hit us as hard (Ukraine and Gaza being obvious winners for that).
Am French and i have a small Health problem with social security alone my medication cost 2Euros per Month and i went to do an X-Ray Last Month and stayed in the hospital a bit and all that for free and stress free most importantly so yeah i feel lucky
My 8-year-old daughter had an open-heart surgery in Spain, and I paid 0€ for the operation and medications. What happens in the U.S. is not normal.
I live in Alberta 🇨🇦 with my incurable disease all of my Drs & I have a lot!! Over 15!! Everything is paid for!! Meds, ambulance, my treatments that are $20,000!!/treatment, dental, eyes literally everything!! I can’t complain!! I’d be dead if I lived in the US! My cousin is in Florida right now for cancer treatment, Alberta is paying for a huge sum of it, don’t know the exact amount but I’d say 95% if not all of it?? We did a fundraiser for his wife so she could be with him 💕🙏🏻🤞🏻
Luxembourg here. Had a accident on a former work place where a air pressure line exploded next to my left ear and I went completely deaf (eardrum ruptured and cochlea heavily damaged). My doctor heard about an experimental treatment where they put you in a pressure chamber and make you breathe pure oxygen for 5 hours a day during a week. He thought, why not and prescribed it. During my next visit, during the audio tests, I performed better than before my last visit before the accident and currently, I‘m still at 120% of that level. Didn’t have to pay anything out the pocket except the ticket for the parking. That’s not covered. Was 2€ a day.
Another thing about UK health care, in the early 1990's had problems with severe depression, asked GP for referral. The top consultant for the local health authority knocked on my door and sat with me in my living room and discussed my problems then booked me into the local mental health ward, again the cost for 2 weeks was £0
I went a bit wobbly headed a few years ago too. My GP was amazing. She sat and held my hand while I melted down at the surgery, sorted me out with the suitable medication and local therapy stuff. It took me a couple of years to shake it all off, but shake it off I did. She moved away not long after, but I bumped into her on a train some time later (I was a conductor at the time). As I was checking her ticket and what have you she she leant forward and quietly said "And how are you feeling now?", which I was rather touched by after all that time and the many thousands of patients she must have seen since.
I'm french, got diagnosed with autism at the CRA clinic in the town of Montpellier, I had a lot of tests and appointment for that diagnosis, costed me a total of 17€ XD the fuel to drive there was more expensive
As an Australian on holiday in France, had a really nasty flu, saw a Dr, no charge! Was prescribed a veritable mountain of medicine, thought it was going to cost a fortune, and yes I think we paid either nothing, or just a few Euros, cant recall. My wife had a similar experience.
By the way, your experience shows a serious problem with our healthcare : there is no need for a mountain of medicine for a flu. We are wasting billions in useless, and sometime dangerous, drugs.
Was that covered by your travel insurance? Or were they being charitable? Australia doesn't have a reciprocal health care agreement with France.
@@daveg2104not travel insurance, we fully expected to be paying! Since we picked up the medicine at local chemist they weren’t being ‘charitable’ our understanding was that it was because it was prescribed.
@@Gomisan So do you not know how you got free/cheap health care? Just curious. Lucky for you and your wife though.
It's called the Aide Médicale aux Etrangers -AME, acronym for soul (Medical Aid to Strangers), even if you're uninsured, and even if you're illegally there (well that changed with the immigration law recently but we'll know this week if this passes as unconstitutional), you won't have to provide any ledger or bank or insurance paperwork, we'll take care of you first.
Then we'll look at the paperwork : oh, a stranger got sick during their stay in France ? First we cure, then we ask questions. If you have the means to pay, you will (but it will be exceptionally cheap). If not, well, take care !
French cancer patient here. I'm from Canada Québec (where health system is "kind of" good) and have been living in France since 2011. I was diagnosed with breast cancer in november 7th 2020. I had seen my doctor 6 days before for a bump on my breast and he prescribed a mammography and one hour after the mammo the oncologist took a biopsy and came with the result the next day. Since it was in the middle of the covid pandemic, they told me that the process would take a lot more time that it would have in normal time. Here is the way it worked for me as a ALD patient (affection longue durée - Long term illness) - everything is free, not a penny out of my pocket - drive to hospital, stay in hospital, surgery, meds even the wig and the prosthesis were paid for. First, a group a doctor met following the result of the biopsy to decide what would be the best treatment for my case : the oncologist, the surgeon, the radiotherapist - and my family doctor. During all the procedure they communicated together with letters and sent me all copies.
Because of covid, I had the surgery only on Dec 1st, 3 weeks after diagnosis. Stayed 2 days in hospital then went home. A nurse came to my place every 2 days for 6 months to change the bandages and take blood samples to make sure I was ok for chimio. I went to hospital 4 times a week for chimio, in ambulance (they call it ambulance and depending on your health it is either a car driven by a nurse or an ambulance where you can lay down if you can't be sited). I used those ambulances for all chimio and radios, for doctors appointements and mammos and still use them - free whenever the appointment is related to the breast cancer.
It has been almost 4 years now, I still have appointments with one of the doctors every 3 months - oncologist, surgeon, radiolotherapist and family doctor and I still have a nurse who comes home every 6 months for a blood sample. After 5 years it will be only once every 2 years until I am 70 and then once every year again.
Québec Canada has a good health system but many doctors who sudied there for almost free prefer to go work in usa where they are better paid. So, in Québec the wait to see a doctor is very long. Having a cancer is never a great news but I sur am glad to have been living in France when it happened to me.
An other subject that is different from Canada, dentists almost all dental care, and glasses are also free in France. For the glasses you can change every 2 years but if you want really expensive glasses (Dior, Prada... etc) you have to pay, or your private insurance, part of the cost. Same for dental implant.
I'm so glad Canada is working on adding Dental Care and Pharma care to our Universal Healthcare. Already starting this year, Families earning less than $90 000 will get coverage for Dental Care. Pharma care is even more important, if you take all your medications regularly, you don't end up in the hospital. Pharma Care actually saves costs on healthcare.
Yup. I'm disabled due to my years of work (Military Contractor) and recently received my sign up. Long overdue, especially given that Dental Health Issues are a major cause of other health problems. As for Pharma, definitely a plus. My yearly co-pay for all drugs is $75.
Biden and Bernie proposed as part of Build Back Better coverage of dental, vision and hearing for Medicare eligible persons! As far as I know the First in the world! It didnt get Passed because of Manchin, but might get be Passed after 2024 if you vote for Democrats!
Franch Speech Therapist here.
Speech therapy is covored by healthcare sytem here, so I have experiences as a sick person and as a professional.
So, 2/3 of the cost lot of procedures are covered by healthcare system. For mental health, it is only psychiatrist (that are doctors), not psychologists (that are not), but in some public care centers that are financed by healthcare system, you can find psychologists. Wait for monthes to gezt an appointement in there. Lot of alternative medecine are not covered too. Public healthcare covers 2 thirds of the price of the basic care. If you want pricy glasses or pricy dentures for eg, you have to pay from your pocket.
For the other part, you have an insurance through your job. It is mandatory since I think 4 or 5 years ago for each company to negociate a health insurance plans with an insurance company for their employees, with the participation of a board of employees representatives elected by the employees (it is a preexisting board, it was not invented for that purpose). As an employee, you now have to choose one of those plan and the price of your insurance is automaticly deducted from salary. You cannot choose to have nothing (that was your choice before). Some plans cover some psychologists every years, or some alternative medecine. The cheapest ones just cover the other third of most basic cares.
People with no income or very low incomes can apply for a 100% covering from public healthcare (it is not automatic, you have to apply). For long term disease or some handicap, the public healthcare system take care of all the expenses listed as necessary in your condition. For handicap, you can apply for special coverage of some expenses in a special place. It is nice, but you have to fill lot of papers (and some health or social workers too) and wait sometimes for several monthes.
Most of the private practices and private hospitals follow the prices decided by the governement for care, so you don't have to pay, but you can have bad surprises. I was pissed to pay 45 euros from my pocket in addition of the price paid by healthcare and my insurance for a 10 mn appointement with an anesthesist without prior notice. But after seeing videos of US healthcare system, I guess I was still lucky to be in France.
On another side, the succesive governements, since years, are kind of destroying this beautiful system, espeacially public hospitals. Workers in hospitals are not well paid, we don't have enough doctors or nurses anymore, so they are overworked. More and more time and money is spend on some administration to control the way you are spending the hospital funds. I mean, control is somehow necessary, but the amount of paper works (in fact, computer work), it became crumpling. Having less time to take a good care of their patients, workers find less meaning in their work, get bruned out etc...
Depending on where you live, ER can be an adventures going for hours.
I'm English, going back to 1986 my wife went into labour with our youngest son, we were on holiday in north Wales. We saw the local doctor straight away on arrival, she was put in an ambulance for a 50 mile trip to the hospital, picking up a midwife on the way, baby delivered and put in special care, wife cared for on maternity ward,. Baby transferred to hospital in our home town by ambulance with special care nurse , Bill for all this £0
That's fine that the NHS was one of the best systems in the world. The question is how the status is today after 13 years of underfunding by the Tory government.
Erm you don't pay national insurance it wasn't free was it 😂
How much n.i have you paid since 1986 it's not free is it
@@markwilliams5654 no it wasn't free but having paid my national insurance I was was not presented with huge bills as I might have been in other countries
The Health System in Spain is quite similar to the French one. Some differences:
- Dental is not covered, and psuquiatric is poor covered, you should wait for months to the first appointment.
- The system is completely financed by payslips taxes and the government, but, the most part of these taxes are payed by the employer (23.6% of salary), the worker only pay a few part (4.7%).
- These taxes cover also the unemployment assurance, where you can be payed until max two years.
- Also, these taxes cover the retirement.
- When you go to the doctor, specialist, emergencies or hospital, you don't pay anything. 0€
- If you have a serious or chronical disease, you don't pay anything.
- About medicines, you pay an small part of they, but not your hospital treatment, these drugs are completely covered.
- Retired people pay even less, only some cents for the medicines.
- Many private hospitals send the more serious cases to the public system, because they have the better and more qualificated professionals and the better machines.
- The system is universal, it cover the 100% of population, even the migrants, even the unemployed workers.
Our system (as the French one) is based in solidarity, and it gives you some peace of mind. This is a problem that you don't need to worry about.
In America your health is like a business
I live in France I pay €27 for a doctors visit, €25 is reimbursed, however as a diabetic all treatment and medicines are covered by the state. I had €2000 worth of denta treatment, I have to pay the dentist by cheque, I then send the bill to my insurance, as soon as I recieve the money I tell the dentist to present the cheque.
Edit, my insurance is €75 a month. My wife pays the same, her last hospital bill was €14K, paid by the state and insurance, alszo paying for taxis and the TV in her private room.
As a diabetic I go into hospital every couple of years for checks/education, all covered. The hospial I use is a private one, food was excellent however they no longer serve wine.
For those who are a little confused by the 50€/year cap :
When I go see a generalist doctor, It costs ~25€, on those 25, healthcare pay 17.50€, and I've to pay 7.50€. Those 7.50€ are refunded by my voluntary health insurance (private) so I've to pay them then get the money back. For each operation done by healthcare system, there is a tax (from 0.50€ to 1€) that is collected when I buy my drugs (not fully refunded by healthcare, only the amount-taxes) and it's those taxes that are capped at 50€/year. Si if I go visit the doctor 100 times in the year, with a 0.50€ tax each time, i've spent 50€ in tax, so I'm not taxed anymore for the rest of the year (I can go to the doctors freely, and it's full covered by healthcare and private insurance).
I am French and we have been fighting for these fundamental rights for centuries. Housing, health care, school, pensions (now threatened) and we keep on fighting. This is not communism or socialism, these are just rights to live. We all participate through our taxes depending on our resources. Before WW2, in 1936 France already voted for many rights. Keep fighting people just for the right to live. LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ have a meaning and are truly implemented as constitutional rights.
The French and Belgian system is very comparable, and a doctors-appointment was priced about the same up until 2019 (20 to 25 EUR). However, the part that used to be re-embursed by the "private/public health insurance (Mutuelle) is now already deducted at the time of the visit itself. Meaning, a doctors appointment now only costs 4 EUR!
The yearly cost for my Mutuelle subscription is 90 EUR, the rest of our social security system is being covered through taxes (our income tax is about 55%). More advanced treatment like a dentist, specialists, or consultations that require special machinery (MRI) can be expensive as they are covered for anything between 30% and 70%.
That's why most employees in Belgium working mid-end to high-end jobs, have an additional 'group insurance" through their job. It coverss alot of the more expensive stuff and grants you a single room when you are admitted to hospital and other medical expenses you could have abroad.
Ryan, to answer your question at the end of the video about the financing: I am French and lived in the US 30 years ago, before returning to France. It took me 1.5 years to reimburse the US hospital for the birth of my second child (and I had a US health insurance). I did not pay anything for the the birth of my 3 other children in France. So, why is it so expensive in the US? There is a fundamental reason: ideology. In the US, everyone says "in a free market, you get the best prices". This is true, but the important word in the sentence is "free". When you are sick, you are NOT free. Nobody wants to die. You are ready to give all your money to save your life. This is why Health Coverage must me regulated and not follow the logic of insurances - it's not, it's protection! Once you understand this, you can force the system using the law and set prices for visits, medications, etc. Forget about malpractices, lawsuits, etc. All these things increase tremendously the costs in the US, and it only make laywers rich. In France, doctors do not have an obligation of success, they have an obligation of effort. BTW, the French system is hybrid, there is a private sector. But the competition of the (rather good) public system and regulations avoid crazy prices.
There are other reasons about the huge costs in the US, like the medication distribution system which is completely screwed up. But that's another (less important) factor. The main factors are the cost of the education that has to be refunded somehow, and most of all the legal costs.
Be aware that not everything is perfect in France. We are struggling with a lack of doctors and specialists, and rising costs of equipment and care. But the Health Care in Europe is way better and cheaper than in the US. In the US, you get the best care... as long as you can afford it.
8:45 that's if you only have the social security, as he said earlier, 90% of french people have also private insurance (usually around 30-35€ a month), and when you add that on top of the social security, you don't actually pay anything when you visit the doctor or pay for medications, I'm 30 and I have yet to pay out of pocket for anything health related in my entire life, with the exception of one blood test because (apparently) one of the things tested wasn't covered, so I paid like 20 bucks
The US should use a system where everyone is obligated to be insured for basic things and the government forcing the companies to use that money for healthcare by law.
There are many variants on this system from nationalised healthcare to a regulated private sector with partly nationalised partly market run systems in the middle. There are all kinds of pro's and cons to those kind of choises but fact is they are cheaper and more humane for everyone.
But as long as people in the US wish to refuse basic rights to them selves, it is their choice. It's your country. Good luck with it!
In France, we have doctors that you can call 24/7/365. They're called SOS MEDECINS. Not so long ago, I was in pain, in the middle of the night. I kwew the pain came from my gallbladder, I'd had it before. One of these doctors came to my house, I told him what I thought the pain was coming from several times, but because I was 57yrs old, he gave me an EKG just to make sure. There was nothing there, so he left me enough pain killers to make it through the night and the day after to give me time to go to a hospital. I gave him my social security card to read on his terminal. And I did not pay anything.
SOS Medecin is great! I had crazy pain one day as well and couldn't sleep or do anything, doctor came, gave me strong medicines and I was feeling nicer the next day.
I'm french, one day someone in my family had a grave heart problem, an ambulance came to pick her up (lives in a very rural area), travelled to the nearest field, an helicopter transferred us to an airstrip where a private jet was waiting for her and flew to a hospital focused on childcare. They did not pay a single sense out of pocket.
7:42 He doesn't explain that well in the video, but basically you usually pay the doctor upfront (about 25€) and later the healthcare system reimburses you automatically. It used to be via a caresheet that the doctor gave you and you would have to submit it in order to get reimbursed, but now it's automated via your "carte vitale" (vital card, basically a healtcare ID).
This is an obstacle to some people who resent going to see a specialist because they can't always afford to issue a larger sum of money.
That's the reason why most people have a side insurance (called "mutuelle"), which allows you to sometimes get appointments without having to pay if you go to a partner specialist of theirs, and also helps cover costs for non-essential care, like hearing and sight, or some bigger interventions, which are often only partially reimbursed. For example, reimbursement for glasses is much higher than for contact lenses.
here's an example (I'm French). My Girlfriend has a chronic disease. She needs to take pills every 6 months or so, one of those pills cost around 14 000 €. She litterally pays nothing, the doctor give her a paper everytime that prove she's sick, and then she get the medicine for free. The entire cost is taken in charge by the french social security. Same for X-RAY and MRI scans, it's fully free.
An example of something not free in France is eyes laser surgery, which cost about 600€ to 2000€ following the type of surgery, it's because for now it's consider as a cosmetic surgery. Those examples are rare.
Health Care system and public authority have a lot of flaws in France, but just because we're fully taken in charge by social securtiy make feel very happy to be french.
Hope some days, USA and others country that can afford this type of systems could do the same.
As a french person, it is hilarious to watch a sick american react to our healthcare system. XD
Although I must say, if our system is great, the quality of work conditions for health workers has droped significantly over the past few decades. There has even been a health workers strike only a few months before the pandemic because of that.
Im sorry for you guys, $1500 for a x ray is shocking to me 😮 (im french)
U.S is the only wealthy Country that doesn't have some form of a National health scheme. It's 1 of only 45 in the world without Universal health care. It also has the highest expenditure per capita (citizen+) @ $12k per person/annum. 2nd is Germany @ $7k per person per annum. 2023. Unfortunately the highest cost doesn't mean better outcomes. VOTE 💙2024 for improved outcomes
from memory it cost me 75 euros here. 🇫🇷
I'm French and spent 7 months in a private hospital last year.
I didn't pay a dime.
The system is far from perfect but I am very grateful to live in a country where my health expenses are being taken care of, I dont know how I would survive without it given my chronic conditions.
"Not far from perfect" ?? Vous êtes très exigeante...
@@philippepages9929 8 mois pour un médecin spécialiste bonne chance
French here. I've never had big health issues that could've brought me to the hospital, but got some little things during my life and also get sick sometimes, as everyone.
And everytime it happens, I'm so grateful for our healthcare system. Going to the doctor and pay only like 8€, and then going to the pharmacy and getting all of my medications for free is just incredible. I think a lot of people don't realize how lucky we are compared to a lot of other countries, especially countries like USA.
Well explained, to add a bit more info, you have different 'sectors' for doctors. For sector 1, the price for a GP is set at 26.5€ : you pay 1€, general insurance pays 17.5 € and your voluntary insurance pays for the rest. Sector 2 is the same but the doctor can set his own prices and anything above those 26.5€ is either covered by your voluntary insurance or out of your pocket. And sector 3 which is completly out of the system and you pay everything
Actually sec3 gets a 61cents refund 😅
And can be either fully or partially paid for by your private insurance (mutuelle).
If the price is reasonnable (up to 50euros) any mutuelle should cover it fully. If not, maybe time to take a look at what your mutuelle offers...
I'm retired and live in France. I'm covered by the general system but also have a "mutuel", suplementary cover, costing €72 per month. With this I get free glasses, free dental treatment, free hospital, ambulance travel, doctor's visits, radiologie, laboratory tests.
Well here in India,there are government hospitals that charge 1rs as consultation fees per visit and provide free generic medicine for some of the common illnesses.Also most of tests and x rays are conducted free of charge.
French here who have lived in India, I'm agree, government hospital are free and I have to say that even if people need to go to the GP, the cost is affordable (I remember something like 100 roupies) and I've been hospitalise for a kidney stone one night in a private hospital, it was 1300 roupies plus medication something like 200 roupies. Lots of people think India is a third world country but for certain important things it's work better than USA! Bharat jaya hai!
In Belgium we have approximately the same system. Part of the taxes on our income are allocated to health. On top of that, we must take out mutual insurance, which reimburses differently depending on your family situation ( I pay 13€ a month for it) . For my part, being a widow, I have one of the highest reimbursement rates, mother being a pensioner benefits from the same advantage. I have two chronic illnesses and all the medications for them are paid directly at the pharmacy by the mutual insurance company. Mom had cancer and was operated on at the end of 2022 and then underwent chemo for 6 months and for all that the bill she had to pay was €800 (that seems like a lot to us but I'm sure it looks like a trifle for Americans)
there's also way too little doctors appointed per year lol
I have an anekdote. My very old mother was alone for 2 weeks and I asked them to bring food and check on her daily. They brought her a meal with 3 courses and fruit with a check if everything was alright and it costs me 10€ a day and we aren’t even French. Down the road there s an old blind French lady. They come everyday to check on her, bring her food and have a walk. All because she could live in her house instead of a home.
I’m french, i got a huge inflamation in my pancreas. I got a cat scan, surgery, medicine and i paid 9€.
I don’t even know how the americans do it, it honestly scares me.
The private component of French health care is totally integrated into the state system. It complements it. Hence the name "complémentaire". Costs are reimbursed seamlessly and divided between the state and the assurance company. For example the cost of a visit to your general practitioner, 25€, is 70% reimbursed by the state and 30% by your assurance company.
I worked six years for a parisian hospital specialized in rare child deceases. Some of the doctors were the best in their speciality. Some rich peoples were travelling from other countries in private jets to see those doctors for their kids. And right after them... very poor french families who paid nothing and had the exact same wonderful doctors. I was really proud to see that. 😊
France's healthcare system has been severely degraded. For decades, the medical lobbies enforced a "numerus clausus" for medical studies. End result : with the boomers entering retirement there are growing needs AND a shortage of doctors. If you are looking for a dermatologist, you may have to wait for months before getting an appointment.
As a French : I was involved in a workplace accident. Broke my ankle at my job, declared it, been on medical leave for 45 days soon, all medical expenses paid for. Salary paid up to 80% by our healthcare.
Italian: No, I don't think even in France the doctor comes to visit you at home for a cold. It comes if you have a high fever, if you are not in a condition to move, etc. In short, if you are not serious enough to go to hospital but you are really sick. I called him once for an allergic crisis and a couple of times for flu and bronchitis with high fever. Cold is not enough.
I can confirm. They will only visit you if you have a serious issue that isn't life-threatening, or if you are a senior or the patient is a children (and even that is getting more and more hard to get).
no, but u can use the "sos medecin" service, some kind of emergency doctor, which allows u to see a doctor at night or during weekend!! They visit u at home if it cant be otherwise.if its possible ,they ask u to drive to the doctors office ( 5 minutes only for me where i live.). And there is always a pharmacy open all night in the city, so u can buy ur medicines after seeing the doctor!! the price is almost the same as ur usual doctor.
@@paulin1606 Yes, that's true. It is the same here and I suppose in all UE.
What is quite incomprehensible is that the citizens of the USA pay expensively for their health expenses, they are certainly those who pay the most in the world, and yet their health system does not satisfy them.
There is inevitably an ideological problem: market logic and free competition don't work in health matters, it is a huge waste because it is not rationalized. And all because of ideological blindness...
I will give my French example, like others: I had cancer with metastasis, I underwent 7 surgical operations and 3 courses of chemotherapy in 4 years, not counting CT scans, MRIs, biological examinations and specialists consultations (cardiologist, gastroenterologist, pulmonologist, even dermatologist...) and I have never had to pay a cent for all of this (but I have always paid my contributions). And what's more, I have been on sick leave for a total of 31 months over the last 4 years, receiving 2/3 of my salary...
I can't but wonder how often you say that you are actually sick. I mean, yes, with a toddler in the house one might get more often sick than usual, but still it seems quite frequent to me. I had a mild cold that lasted about a week just once last year. That was it. Nothing else. I mingle with people every day, at work, when shopping, etc. I think, three things are mainly responsible for getting sick (primarily colds, I presume) on a regular basis: 1. Having A/C everywhere. 2. Taking antibiotics for every little sneeze. Antibiotics are pretty useless against most virus based infections. They only help efficiently against bacteria (like pneumonia, or tonsillitis). By too much antibiotics intake you ruin your complete intestinal microflora, a thing very important to your immune system. 3. Bad, unhealthy eating habits.
I'm french and i went to the eye doctor today because my left eye hurts. They checked my eyesight and gave me a new prescription for my glasses, then they checked my eye and gave me prescription to buy medicine for that too. In the end I didn't pay, my inssurance did. When i'll go get the medicine, i'll etheir pay around 5euros or not at all, it dependes on if my inssurance pays the full price or not
this is one of the most entertaining and informative channels along with McJibbin and yr half brother
His twin... 😉
I have to go for an X-ray tomorrow in Canada. It’s free. I had to have an X-ray in Peru once with no insurance and the entire visit, doctors, X-ray and wrapping my ankle was under $75 Canadian. I almost ALWAYS make sure I have health insurance when I travel to the USA. my mother in law had to go the hospital for her diabetes down there for ONE night and it was over $22,000 USD!
Finland here. My daughter went to France as an au pair. She asked about health insurance. I told her to expect better care for less in France (as an EU citizen).
I'm French, I lived abroad for several years, but I was happy to be back in France when I found out I was ill.
I suffer from chronic myeloid leukemia, and I don't know what it's like in the USA, but here I have treatment for life, free of charge.
However, I know how much it costs because it's indicated on the bills; around 2000€ per month.
What's more, when you suffer from a long-term pathology, you're covered by a system of our health insurance called “affection de longue durée” (long-term illness), which covers all health expenses linked to the illness, including the side effects of the medication.
In short, I don't regret living in France for a second.
I've lived as a Brit in France for over 20 years. I have always found the speed, efficiency and cost to be great. I have some conditions considered as 'permanent', and any treatment related to them is 100% free. For instance, I lost my balance and fell down a flight of granite stairs a couple of years ago. The fall was considered as being as a result of my permanent conditions and I spent 2 weeks in the ICU and a week under observation. I was x-rayed, scanned and operated on countless times and when I finally left hospital, not a centime to pay.
As others have mentioned, most people have a 'mutuelle', which is a top-up insurance when the govt doesn't pay 100% for certain treatments/medications. My mutuelle costs me €55/month and for someone who needs many medications (a number outside of my 100% cover), this is a massive saving on prescriptions and essentially makes them free, whatever the medication/treatment.
Oh, and to get mutuelle 'insurance', there are no questionnaires to fill asking about pre-existing conditions...
Yeah, pre-existing conditions are considered 'permanentes', ie. Affection de Longue Durée. Covered 100% by the system. We do pay a lot, but god, do we get our money back when we need it.
I'm French, and with my conditions of living, I'm covered by a "70-30" system.
It's mean that's 70% of my medical expenses are covered by the French Social Security and 30% by my Private Inssurance.
In practice, if I go to see my Referent Doctor for anything, I will pay 5€ for the visit and nothing for the meds, then the 5€ will be refund to me by my Private Inssurance two to three days later.
As for my Private Inssurance, it is owned by my Bank and cost me about 30€ a month, covered every medical cares with the exception of Dental Care, Optic Care and Plastic Surgery (No system cover Plastic Surgery in France).
Poland is not as rich as France or USA, but if I go to the hospital and I stay there, say, a week or two or three - and during this time I have a lot of tests such as X-ray or tomography, I pay nothing. NOTHING. ZERO. Z-E-R-O!
My brother had an auto-immune illnesse which coule have killed him. The healing needs a product costing 30000€/day for a week. If it wasn't for the french healthcare, he would be dead now.
7:45 to give an example as a French person, last week I went to my GP. At the end of the consultation, he asked me to pay 32 euros (that's his turnover, it's a practice, therefore a company). Of these 32 euros, 20 were reimbursed to me by social security directly into my account and the rest was reimbursed to me by my mutual insurance company (which I pay every month, but my boss pays part of it)
finally, I have a few euros left to pay, it's not huge. of course, the amount of the consultation varies depending on the consultation and the type of practitioner. For example, for the dentist, I pay around 45 euros per consultation, and almost half is reimbursed. For the dentist it's different, he doesn't pay the Value Added Tax because his equipment is too expensive, he would have been obliged to pass this cost on to the price of his service and this would have obliged social security to reimburse more. and in France regardless of nationality, the price is the same for everyone. but this system has limits: for example for a dental quote, social security has a list of dental services that are reimbursed or not: if it is a treatment that it considers to be aesthetic, it will not cover it but if it is not, it will take up to 3/4 of the cost of the quote that the doctor will have given. and it is up to the patient to see if their mutual insurance covers the rest. The unfortunate thing is that for some patients, the aesthetics may not be the case, and so they end up paying several thousand euros for dental care themselves.
Im french . I pay a lot for this system, 55 % of my society, 20 % of tva and after that 30 % of my income .
It’s very expansive , nothing is free
It's interesting that the country with the most expensive health care in the world doesn't want to switch to universal coverage because it would be "too expensive", while that's what the rest of the civilized world does, and it's less expensive everywhere. I understand that it's a different culture, and there are other things in the way, but there's something there.
A surprisingly big portion of the cost in the US is administrative... because of how complex it is to manage all the insurance issues. Doctors spend 50% of their time on that (and are frustrated by this) and hospitals have more administrators than medical staff. That's a massive cost that literally disappears the second you have universal coverage.
I have quite a bit to say, here.
Social security, while covering everyone, doesn't cover everything, for the general group. It's like, 70% of the bill, with every price on the bill being regulated. The best example for this is the drugs : a pharmacist friend told me that some drugs would cost thousands of euros, but with social security coverage it only ends up costing like 5/10€. But since people only see the 5/10€, they complain about the price whenever it slightly rises.
Insurances cover part or all of what the social security doesn't cover. Going to the ER without insurance cost me 17 or 18€, but with insurance I wouldn't have had to pay anything. Same for the doctor, drugs, etc. And that ER visit included getting an x-ray (which was not in any way factored in the "bill").
Going to the doctor a bit later the same year cost me more, around 25€ for the visit alone. I had to make an appointment, the earliest one available was less than 3h later. Oh, and it was a doctor from "SOS Médecins", meaning not a family doctor but one that was called whenever people didn't have access to their family doctor or had an emergency that didn't need going to the ER.
But including the drugs, brace, and both visits, my total health bills in that year were about 60€. Because I didn't have insurance.
Since then, I've transitioned from being a student to being searching for a job. And I now qualify for a different version of social security, which includes everything up to a certain degree (if there's a choice between two good options, the cheaper one will be covered but the other probably won't).
All of this means that when we are sick, we get it checked out. First by our family doctor (or another general doctor) and if that doctor feels like we need something more, he writes a referral to a specialist. Meaning that there's less chance that we let a big sickness (like, say, diabetes) kill us. The medicine being also covered means that we can easily afford to get treated, be it for a broken leg or a bad cough. Which leads to a more healthy country, thus able to be more productive.
On the other hand, I'll be fair, things that are small (like a small cough, puking a bit, stuff like that) are often left to heal themselves, but if it lasts too long without change we'd go to the doctor. Whereas I feel like in the US, you'd learn to live with it (for a small cough, at least, doubt you'd live with puking every day)
This is the reason why I don’t cry about my salary cut a lot here in France. Whenever I go to the doctor I almost pay nothing and I know that others are benefiting from it.
It's precisely this "others are benefiting from it" that the capitalist American system can't get nor accept. "Why should I pay for others with my hard-earned money?" It's called caring, mate.
I'm from Romania, my dad( unfortunately passed away), had cancer, he got lots of help because he paid his share when working, but just think he fought that for 13 years! With the help of his health insurance as a worker!
You asked about stories of care in France, I'm in pretty good health, but can give two examples.
1 : When I was 11, i fell off my bed then went back to sleep, in the morning I could barely move, so my parents assumed I got hurt when I fell and didn't feel it immediately. They drove me to the nearest clinic (about 20 min away from home and I lived in a really small town back then), we waited an hour there and I was taken for an X ray. Turns out, I had a broken rib, I just got some medication for the pain for a few weeks and that was it. If my parents paid anything for the whole thing, it must have been less than 10 euros total, and only because we had a pretty basic insurance.
2 : A year ago, I went to my family doctor because of some neck pains I had. I went to a physiotherapist 2 times a week for a month and a half to get my neck massaged and some reeducation on how to move and stretch it to fix it. I'm a poor student, it cost me 5€ at the family doctor and that was it. Even better, for those 5€, he diagnosed another problem of mine and it also got treated as well.
All this to say, I know for Americans, spending thousands of dollars on medical expences seems normal, but to us, this is the craziest sh*t ever. Like, if Walter White had been French, he simply would have had his cancer treated for no expense and no need to break bad
In basic : you mainly don’t have to pay anything, 70% is covered by the national system and the rest by your mutuelle (private complement insurance) who cost from 20 to 50 € per month ( sometime little more)
I suffered a pulmonary embolism back in 2005 and spent 4 days in the Pulmonary Intensive Care unit at the HEGP (one of the more modern hospitals) in Paris. Not only did I continue to get paid 100% by my employer (the government paid them back), but my hospital stay cost a grand total of €14. Here in the US, with the best health insurance that my job can offer, even a simple visit to Urgent Care is a minimum $60 copay and that's just to be *seen*.
I there I'm French.
To get a little more deeper in the explanation, the income in french is heavily taxed to pay the health system. Approx 1/4 of your income is taxe directly before you get your money to pay the system.
Meaning that everybody is paid less than in the us. But every one get access to the same rights even if the taxes are proportionnal to your income.
Meaning you are engineer you will get paid ~40k€/year and on that you will get only 25k€/year. 10k€ will be use to finance health system and 5k€ will be collected for the retirement.
If you get sick or not you're paying same.
Depuis quand payez vous votre assurance voiture ? Votre assurance maison ? Combien d’accident ou d’incendie ? C’est le principe de l’assurance. Pour sa voiture et sa maison, ça ne dérange personne, mais pour sa santé… illogisme
Here in DK, my GF was in a bad car accident, and spent multiple days at the hospital, countless CT scans, staying in single person room, she was seen immediately, got morphine and other pills for a couple of weeks, paid 0. A month earlier, she got too drunk at a party, and fell, hitting something sharp, so got a flesh wound at her chin, spent a couple hours waiting in the ER (after being quickly seen by a nurse first ofc), got stiches, paid 0. I had a bad eye infection (not virus/bacteria), required daily visits to the Hospital, lots of checks, and tests, an hour or two waiting time initially, the rest of the time, seen within an hour, in total about 6 visits at the hospital, paid 0. Follow up checks at her/my general practitioner, paying 0 each time. People in my country usually give our healthcare system a bad name, but honestly from what I have experienced, I'm super happy for what we got. (not a lack of skills/standard, just slightly longer waiting times due to lower staffing than ideal).
In France, after Belgium and the Netherlands, I'd say the system is second to none. My GP requires an appointment if you come in the monrning or you can just swing by after midday and take the wait for granted. Could be 5 minutes could be 3 hours. Got a couple of chronic conditions and that sort of eliminates the need for a mutuelle. Doctors know that and are not afraid too let you benefit if you are in that situation. If I need a referal, most of the times I don't even need to pose the question, he'll send me to the lab at least twice a year, I'll have my prescription for the next three months. A few times an ambulance needed to come, now that's something that's really mindblowing. We have the SAMU's which are basicly quick transports to the hospital and in really urgent cases they will send a SMUR, which is like a hospital on wheels, a SMUR is usually accompanied by firefighters for any heavy work. The SMUR will have a driver, a navigator a specialist, several nurses and is loaded with lifesaving monitoring equipment. Dentists, as where in The Netherlands the amount you can spend on a dentist is limited by the insurance, in France you can get basically everything done, no caps as long as the public system covers it, implants for ex. are not covered anymore but as there are other options and/or materials that are covered. The system is also divided into 3 sectors, the 1st is 100% public/general, the second is semi private but for those who cannot find a specialist in the 1st sector, the doctors in the 2nd sector may be the solution, mostly covered at 70% from the publuc sector but again for those who cannot afford it or have a chronic disease, the public system will cover the last 30% too. Sector 3 is private but also egulated by the public system. Essentially there's no reimbursements for that sector unless you have a mutuelle which covers part of that too. Then pharmacies. Pharmacies are all commercial enterprises, but medications are billed to the public system at a regulated price. usually covered at 65-70% by the public system and the other part by the mutuelle. The last 10 years, if I don't reckon gas or parking costs, I may have spent about 25 euro alltogether for some medications that weren't covered (anymore). We have more pharmacies than the US has Starbucks and McDonalds put together. They're everywhere, you'll find one in less than a 5 minute walk. Then the most common american argment; waiting times. This heavily depends on region/sector/specialism. some specialists can have crazy long waiting times, but almost always you can find an alternative. Closerby or further away, if you need care faster or urgently you will find no waiting times at all. Anyways, that's my view on the system. Get that cough taken care of man...and if I was an american I'd probably get a free consultation somewhere and get the prescriptiondrug online from anywhere in the world, as the save on a single pill might just cover the overnight UPS costs. I've been to the US several times and needed care there too, and the amounts I had to advance we're mindboggling. I mean 350 USD for a dental consultation? another 70 USD for a penniciline????