ok, coming from a country where universal health care is a pretty foreign idea, I’ve got a question about european health care (specifically french, but from what I understand, health care is fairly similar in some European countries).
I live in Paris, but I haven’t had any problems yet where I would need to see a doctor or to get medecine, so I honestly have no idea how health insurance works. However, I have a friend who wants to come study in Paris, but he has a very particular situation: Cystic Fibrosis. While it’s a (relatively) mild case, he does still need lots of medecines.
I just want to know if this is going to be a problem for him as far as getting into the system or getting his medications. Also, if anyone knows who/what organization I should contact here, I would be grateful for the information.
I couldn’t answers your questions, because I’ve no clue how it works for temporary foreign residents, like students.
The “securite sociale” is in charge (and it is divided in “caisses”, each in charge of a subset of the population, either geographically or depending on the person’s activity) . But since your friend is a student, you/he should ask the university where he will be studying. Registration with the relevant “caisse de sécurité sociale” is normally handled by some service of the university. Besides, they probably know quite well the situation of their foreign students.
For what is worth, a french student would pay something like 150 €/ year normally included in the uni’s yearly fees, for his healthcare coverage, according to a friend who was recently a student (contrarily to the british system, healthcare in france is paid for by a tax on salaries, so people who never have been employed and aren’t destitute, like students, have to pay a small amount for it).
Universities normally offer too cheap compementary insurances (useful mainly for optics and dentistry, poorly covered by the public healthcare system). In my experience, these “mutual insurances” (which aren’t for profit organizations) only care about preexisting conditions if you don’t suscribe immediatly (upon joining the company/university). But this of course is dependant on him being covered by the “sécurite sociale” at the first place.
If you can’t get a response for some reason, you can let me know, I could call the “securite sociale” and tell you what they answered, but of course, it would be better for him to ask directly and get an accurate answer from someone knowing what he’s talking about. And whose job is precisely to handle the issue.
And by the way, the system in different countries doesn’t work at all in the same way in various european countries, so asking about “european healthcare” when wondering about a specific case in a particular country won’t help.
This page from a site dedicaced to american expatriates living in the french town of Toulouse, gives a quite detailled explanation about the french medical system.
Unfortunately, concerning eligibility of students, it only mentions that they should contact the local “mutuelle des etudiants” if under 26 of age.
If he is an American student in some type of study-abroad program, or just independently traveling to France to study for a short time period, it seems most likelyy that he will need to find American health insurance that will cover him while he is overseas. Most HMO type plans will not, since they are based on local networks of providers. If it is more of a Blue-Cross type plan, they are more likely to provide coverage overseas, since the arrangement is more like they pay 80%/ he pays 20% of the bill.
I lived in Spain for about 2 years and was never on any type of Spanish health insurance. The one time I needed medical care (broken finger) I got it x-rayed at a private hospital and they billed me.
Can your friend stay on his American insurance and have someone here fill his prescriptions and mail them to him? I think that was also done for me at one point.