Good clarification, but still surprising, and I guess it’s why the social charges are so high for us that pay.
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So about 1000 a year ?
I’m unusually fit and healthy but I suppose I need to think about that - for the first year I assume PHI will cover pretty well everything ?
And I would still need a mutuelle with my S1 ?
Frankly, Yes… I would say it is best idea…
I was the healthiest person, when we came… but have since had occasion to be very grateful that I had a Mutuelle alongside the S1, right from the start of our “big adventure…”
@fabien is the person to contact for best advice… tried and trusted…
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My own general rule… if it sounds unbelievable… it probably is… 
and with Health… it certainly is…
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I think people get confused about the two different aspects of this as names similar (cotisations sociales and charges sociale). I know I do. Non-working British people without an S1 will pay a pretty small annual cotisation to URSAFF which is the equivalent of the rather larger cotisations taken from working people’s salaries.
One also has to pay social charges on one’s overall income, the percentage varies and once one has an S1 this reduces to 7.5%.
The amount individuals pay for health cover is actually very low in France, and the health service is funded by various means. The charges levied on you one way or another cover a huge range of good things to do with social security , and also servicing national debt The social support available in France for the old, the poor, the unemployed, the sick, the accident prone, is to my Uk eyes pretty good!
The health service is not free at the point of use like in the UK, but I have found costs to be very reasonable. We only have a hospital mutuelle as are generally healthy apart from my chronic disease covered by ALD. In general we pay around €1000a year for the two of us including the mutuelle; and get excellent health care.
(Les cotisations sociales permettent le financement des prestations sociales
- accident de travail, maladie professionnelle ;
- formation professionnelle ;
- chômage ;
- maladie et maternité ;
- prévoyance, en cas d’invalidité ou de décès ;
- famille : allocations familiales et prestation d’accueil de jeune enfant (PAJE) ;
- vieillesse : cette allocation permet le [financement de la retraite])
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I feel I must add my own praise of French Health Care
I fell on a street…
got helped by local police, then Pompiers to A&E…
I had x-rays, MRI, blood tests, heart/bloodpressure monitoring etc etc… all done with results known within albeit several hours… then plastered/bandaged-up loaded with prescriptions for pills and potions… a letter for my Doc…describing test results and suggested treatment… and sent home in medical taxi…
Phoned my Doc and saw him the next day…
Chap in UK, fell downstairs… went to Doc in agony…
X-rays done within a couple of days of the fall…
2-weeks later x-ray results received by Doc… nowt shows, but talk of a possible MRI at some future moment…
sent to Specialist … earliest appt 2 weeks later…
huh… waste of time… 2 weeks later and it’s just more talks of a possible MRI to check why so much pain… but… but… when ???
Earliest appt for MRI is in 2 months… !!!
After conflab… Family paid privately for MRI and got one “just like that” and got the results “just like that”
Seems there is one vertabrae broken and another “contused”… no wonder the poor chap is in agony…
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Not nearly on that scale, but the NHS has now formally made themselves useless to me.
I have had several bad experiences in the past including a seriously botched unnecessary diagnostic procedure, but I thought that they might at least be able to remove the pilar cyst on the back of my head that has swollen to the size of a pecan…
Not a chance - £400 via a private service running in several GP surgeries - none of them even geographically convenient. By all accounts the surgical instruments they used to use there were actually confiscated.
And to add insult to injury, if I had believed the reading on the BP gauge in the foyer, I would have had them dial 999 - and that was before I was more or less accused of taking the mickey.
Better get yourself over to France and into the Health service here asap!
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