Chapter 149: In Which Our Protagonists Dip Their Toes In The Murky Waters Of Socialized Medicine

Maggie got sick last Friday. I had the decency to wait until Matt left to get sick, but I got sick too. We're both still suffering from congestion, runny noses, fatigue, and coughing. This makes me sad, and makes Maggie a little crazy-eyed.


So today we went to the doctor. Sure, it's obvious we just have bad colds, but we figured just going would make us feel better. WE FIGURED WRONG!!!!!!1111

See, France has what you might call "SOCIALIZED MEDICINE!!!!!!" and we knew what to expect. First off, we couldn't keep our regular doctors. Because they were still in the States. Second, we couldn't choose our new doctor here. Because we kept getting recommendations from all our neighbors, and we just could not figure out who to pick. Third, we knew there wouldn't just be a single doctor seeing us, but rather a whole PANEL of doctors!!! And everything would be more expensive, and we would be brainwashed into becoming Communists, and we would probably leave more diseased than we arrived. Sad times . . .

But seriously, everything went swimmingly. We picked a doctor recommended by Héloise, in part because the office was two blocks away, in part because any doctor that wins the trust of a mother of three boys under 8 must be doing something right. I called at 1 PM, concluded we didn't need a house visit (doctors still make them here), and got a 5 PM appointment. At the office, we waited about 15 minutes, he saw us for about 30 minutes, we left the pharmacy with our prescriptions 15 minutes after that.

We filled out no paperwork. He asked us if we had insurance, but only so he could sign and hand over the reimbursement form. We paid cash for the visit - 44 euros for the two of us, which (at $63) seems more like a co-pay than the full cost of a doctor's appointment. (Also, it was weird to hand cash over to the doctor himself, but hey, whatever it takes to save on administrative costs . . .)

The really shocking, devastatingly "socialized" part came when we arrived at the pharmacy. We handed over the prescriptions. The guy couldn't do the insurance stuff online because Maggie doesn't have a permanent card yet (she's on French student health insurance) and I'm still on Blue Cross/Blue Shield (ironically, I wasn't eligible for French student health insurance). So he did the insurance stuff by hand, and gave us our medication, and guess how much it cost?

10.96 euros. For five different pieces of medication. Including two whose slogans must be something like, "Strong enough for a rhino, gentle enough for your nose." So 10.96 euros, and that's before insurance reimbursement. Normally, you'd get it all back, but since we don't have a "regular" doctor in France, the insurance company takes 4 euros off the reimbursement. Harsh.

In conclusion, we're kind of hoping we can get our hands on some of this socialized medicine stuff when we get back to the US. (Thank goodness for Massachusetts! Or not . . .)

PS - If you look closely at the boxes, you'll see Braille. Very cool. Socialized Medicine FTW.