Health Care in France

Do I entirely understand it? No!

In some ways French health care is simple. In others labyrinthine. After a year I am still finding out bits and pieces and assembling them into a whole. What I can say though is that ultimately the goal of French health care, unlike Canada, is to provide as much care as possible to every person, rather than rationing it to save money.

Care begins with a Carte Vitale, a green health card which is the first thing requested everywhere and anywhere. This represents the government supplied part of health care, which includes medical care, prescription drugs, eyeglasses, dental care, and a variety of other treatments that Canadian healthcare has worked hard to avoid providing.

What the French understand is that for a person to remain healthy, all of their healthcare needs have to be taken care of, that each element from eye, to teeth, to stomach and toes, effects all of the others, and that to ignore any part of health care is to be sure that people will eventually become sick.

However the Carte Vitale does not provide 100% coverage, so most people also have an accompanying private mutuelle insurance which takes care of the balance. I pay about $75 € a month, but I receive so much more than BC Medical every provided me.

A word about waiting times. For the most part France avoids the months or years long waitlists for things like hip replacements and other commonplace surgeries. I think that most French people would be shocked at how long a Canadian will be forced to suffer because the handful of surgeons, or hospital operating rooms, are overwhelmed.

Like seemingly most of the Western world, it is incredibly hard to find a family doctor in France. I won’t claim to understand why, but France has a very well established system of on-line medical support available. You log into Qare, or any of a few companies, find a doctor and make your appointment. For routine stuff like prescription renewals it’s fast and easy.

The heart and soul of every neighbourhood are the boulangerie, and the pharmacie. The latter has a big green neon sign the shape of a four sided cross. The wonderful thing about your pharmacie is that they are happy to bend the rules for you. Don’t quite have an updated prescription? No problem, they’ll give you month’s supply anyway. Does your situation not quite fit the official structures? They’ll spend an hour discussing it with you, and with their co-workers, and trying out different possible workarounds until something sticks.

People are very nice, very friendly, and honestly want to do whatever they can to help you.

Plus, the monthly medications that cost me $90 in BC cost me zero in France. Part of that is because there seem to be an endless variety of generic suppliers for almost every medicine imaginable. The lack of drug monopolies makes prices lower.

In France medicine begins and ends with the homeopathic. Unless you have a prescription you will invariably be offered a homeopathic remedy first. And old favourites like Buckley’s Mixture or Gravol are nowhere to found.

That choice to prefer more natural types of medication is all part of the overall belief that the purpose of a health care system is to treat the entire person, with respect and as completely and gently as possible.