My French Healthcare Nightmare

Here's my FRENCH SOCIALIZED MEDICINE experience.

Before moving to France we believed socialized medicine to be a great idea. After all we enjoyed libraries, post offices, and public schools. WHY NOT PUBLIC HEALTHCARE!? It seemed like a natural, logical thing. Why shouldn't tax dollars fund the health and well being of it's tax payers. American healthcare IS severely over priced. Big Pharma gets away with murder for what they charge. Being that it is people's lives on the line if they can't pay, it's literal murder. This is what we thought. We moved to France in 2014. At first we LOVED French medicine. We were prescribed homeopathy and essential oils. WOW! We soon realized it was the government being cheap rather than some benevolent desire to be natural. Snake oil remedies that weren't very effective were often given. Although, I now know lavender can heal everything. It's magic, truly. BUT in the US this was exactly the kind of thing I'd do when I couldn't afford to go to a doctor for "real" medicine. The only difference is now it's government sanctioned home remedies. We moved to a different town closer to Paris after a couple years in the DEEP French countryside of Champagne. We went to try and establish a new primary care doctor only to quickly be told there aren't any. "Wait, what? As in NO doctor in this entire town will take us as patients? What about the next town over? Not them either? And the town after that? No one there too? Ok where then?" The answer was down the highway 45 minutes away, many many towns over. We got our family on the books and then that doctor closed his books and would no longer take new patients. "PHEW!" Close one! Glad we slid in at the last second. This doctor with more patients than he could handle who was our primary care giver, also HAD to do laser hair removal on the side to pay the rent and bills for his practice. BONUS! I got laser hair removal in addition to check ups! Of course The healthcare system didn't pay for that. Which is WHY it was actually lucrative for him. During our sojourn in France I had a car accident and a couple of surgeries. The operating rooms were nice and what you would find in any American hospital. But the rest of the building was a different story. Crumbling, dirty, broken, lacking equipment, broken elevators. NO AIR CONDITIONING. Try being in a car accident in the summer in France and being tied to a hospital bed in a stained gown ("What WAS that brown blob I wonder?"), IVs running everywhere, neck brace, 100 degrees, stuffy closed room and no AC. It's lots of fun! Private rooms you ask???? LOL!!!!!! You are SO funny! It was weeks and sometimes MONTHS out to get appointments. So when one of my kids got sick we'd have to go to the dreaded "wait and see" hours that would be made available. Once I went to the building in our town that did this. The number you called to tell them you were coming in was a call service. There was no reception, no nurses, just a doctor in a back room with a stethoscope and a thermometer. Folding chairs lined the walls of an all white Soviet looking building. But good luck getting a chair, it was standing room only. Too bad I didn't smoke. It would have been nice to have an excuse to stand outside. We left and went to the only other option, an ER room. Surely that would be better. It was but not by much. Aside from the mold and peeling wall paper I was particularly impressed by the fact that dust bunnies under the chairs had actually formed Tumble weed type formations! It was like witnessing dust bunny evolution! Truly a sight to behold. This would always result in being given Tylenol and being told to come back if my child got worse. 6 hours well spent! Seriously why did I even bother! Dental care was a joke. In all of our 6 years we never once received a cleaning or any "preventative" care. It was considered to be cosmetic. When my children had cavities French "suck it up" medicine came into play. Tylenol for pain, antibiotics once it turned into an abscess, and then lets pull the tooth. I felt like I was in some Western where the cowboy missing half his teeth goes to the town dentist with pliers who yanks out another. At least the pliers were sterile and the dentist wore a white coat. That makes it all better right? OF COURSE WHY COMPLAIN IT WAS ALL FREE RIGHT???? WRONG!!! So let's talk about the cost of all of this FABULOUS care. Our taxes increased DRAMATICALLY. Doing the math we quickly realized that we had paid LESS paying normal American taxes PLUS insurance than what we were now paying out to the French government for this "FREE" health care. We lost $2,000 a month in NET income. So we were now paying MORE FOR LESS. Less quality, less choices, and less care. But hey at least it paid 100% right???? WRONG AGAIN!!! The Government did NOT pick up 100% of our bill. Not at all. In fact health insurance is a thing in France to pick up the leftover sum that you would be billed for otherwise. The insurance is called a "mutuelle" and is provided by your employer, same as in the US. So after that comes into play THEN it's paid for 100%, right????? NO!!! NOT AT ALL!!! After my surgeries carte vitale paid their portion, our TWO mutuelles paid there portions, and THEN I still got billed. I paid a couple of thousand euros still in hospital bills AFTER socialized medicine and AFTER the insurance. SO WHAT WAS I PAYING FOR!!!!!!!!!!!! What were all those taxes for!!!! To line the pockets of French government workers, pay for strikers not to work who crippled the cities, pay for all the refugees flooding in setting up tents all over the cities, pay for highways with very few services. If only it paid someone to clean up all the DOG SHIT that was left everywhere by entitled people coddled by an expensive over inflated government. So all of that was horrible yet I still love France and I love the French. I loved living there and seeing the gorgeous architecture and history. I loved the seasons. Springtime is the BEST. Paris is my #2 favorite city. I love the culture. No one can find fault with French wine or bread. I love being bilingual. The language is beautiful and it's really fun for me to speak it when I get the chance to. But I want CAPITALISM BACK. I want to keep my $24,000 a year and go to hospitals and doctors that are NICE, clean, and have appointments available. I want to have the ABILITY to go get a second opinion and not wait months for that other appointment. We only moved back to the US a month ago as of writing this. We've started getting the kids in to dentists and pediatricians for pre-back to school well visits. My kids are in culture shock by how "nice" and "clean" and "friendly" these places are. Doctors offices with murals, TVs and toys! Friendly kind staff. And a LOT of staff. Not one guy in a room and MAYBE a lady at a desk IF HE'S LUCKY. Welcome back to Capitalism kids! Sorry for your parents naive social experiment.

So if you are reading this and you STILL believe in Universal healthcare let me ask you something. Do you LOVE and trust your government? Do you think your government spends YOUR money wisely? Do you TRUST your government to make life and death decisions about you and your family's well being? Do you TRUST your government to put your health needs above their own agendas? If you answered NO to any of these questions, you need to re-evaluate your stance. American Healthcare is FAR from perfect. Reforms should be made. However, I have now lived a significant amount of time in both systems and I have no more doubts to which is the better of the two.