Where should I start? The beginning of this story goes back ten years
ago when Giuseppe was in Nice and Josh was just born. Naturally the
first thing we did was to register him under his daddy's Carte Vitale so he could get all the benefits of the French health system. Of course,
not being officially married at that time, I couldn't do the same for myself but who
cared, right? I am Italian, I was leaving in my home country, what else
would I need?
Obviously things have changed. We are here for one year and if I need a doctor, I can't take a train and cross the border. Well, of course I could but it wouldn't be reasonable.
So in August, as soon as we arrived here, we went to the Securite Sociale to update Giuseppe's card such that I could be included as.wife. Sounds simple and pretty straight forward.
Wake up. This is France and you're dealing with public bureaucracy: compared to this, the DMV issue is a piece of cake. It turned out that we had to go to the office not one but three times, explaining three times the same story to the least collaborating clerk and then wait. Because they don't give you a damn receipt of all the paper works (opportunely translated in French because, God forbids, you can't expect anyone to talk, read or understand English...). Don't even think to solicit by making a phone call: you can literally see your nails grow back by the time someone will pick up the phone. And then of course this same person won't have a clue of where all your application is and he's going to transfer you to someone else. You know how this whole story will end, don't you. Total failure. Good thing the wine is excellent so you can relax your nerves...
Long story short: it's now March and last week I was finally able to put my Carte Vitale in my wallet!
Hurray. Even better than in California! It took them only seven months to process the paper works! But now I can go to any doctor, laboratory, pharmacy I want, get whatever I need, pay upfront the entire amount (free medicine? that's not what socialized medicine means), they'll swipe your card and...pouf! there you go, all your health information are updated (every single detail in a golden microchip, just like any credit card has all your account information, transactions and everything). and that's not all: you won't get hundreds of billing statements for the next six months as it happens in USA, where you end up not knowing how many times and how much you end up paying for the simplest surgical procedure: a bill for the labs, another for the room, one for the surgeon, one for the assistant, one for the ultrasound, etc etc. No, here your data go directly through their magical account system and in a couple of weeks you' ll get from your bank account a statement saying that you have been credited back seventy percent of all you have spent in the past month for your health. impressive, isn't it?
So it turns out that waiting so long was worth it and , yes, despite the initial problems (nothing compared to what we faced when we moved to L.A.) this France system is still my favorite.
Obviously things have changed. We are here for one year and if I need a doctor, I can't take a train and cross the border. Well, of course I could but it wouldn't be reasonable.
So in August, as soon as we arrived here, we went to the Securite Sociale to update Giuseppe's card such that I could be included as.wife. Sounds simple and pretty straight forward.
Wake up. This is France and you're dealing with public bureaucracy: compared to this, the DMV issue is a piece of cake. It turned out that we had to go to the office not one but three times, explaining three times the same story to the least collaborating clerk and then wait. Because they don't give you a damn receipt of all the paper works (opportunely translated in French because, God forbids, you can't expect anyone to talk, read or understand English...). Don't even think to solicit by making a phone call: you can literally see your nails grow back by the time someone will pick up the phone. And then of course this same person won't have a clue of where all your application is and he's going to transfer you to someone else. You know how this whole story will end, don't you. Total failure. Good thing the wine is excellent so you can relax your nerves...
Long story short: it's now March and last week I was finally able to put my Carte Vitale in my wallet!
Hurray. Even better than in California! It took them only seven months to process the paper works! But now I can go to any doctor, laboratory, pharmacy I want, get whatever I need, pay upfront the entire amount (free medicine? that's not what socialized medicine means), they'll swipe your card and...pouf! there you go, all your health information are updated (every single detail in a golden microchip, just like any credit card has all your account information, transactions and everything). and that's not all: you won't get hundreds of billing statements for the next six months as it happens in USA, where you end up not knowing how many times and how much you end up paying for the simplest surgical procedure: a bill for the labs, another for the room, one for the surgeon, one for the assistant, one for the ultrasound, etc etc. No, here your data go directly through their magical account system and in a couple of weeks you' ll get from your bank account a statement saying that you have been credited back seventy percent of all you have spent in the past month for your health. impressive, isn't it?
So it turns out that waiting so long was worth it and , yes, despite the initial problems (nothing compared to what we faced when we moved to L.A.) this France system is still my favorite.
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