Health Care Costs in France for Pensioners

Follow -up to posting of April 2010.
A seven page document has been sent to the new Minister of Health, Andrew Lansley. [Acknowledgement of receipt from Dept. of Health received 4th June]

I am satisfied that the OAPs in France should have no need to pay for a top-up mutuelle health insurance. By definition in European law, the Department of Health of the UK is the competent institution within the EEA to cover the social security of those who hold an E121- that is to say the needs of British OAPs resident in Europe.

It has taken me some months to gather the information on this matter!

If the UK Government would wake up to the scandal of this system, I believe that it could save more than 50 million pounds and the OAP in France the costs of the mutuelle insurance of about £550 or 630euros  (some people in their 80s are paying, for a couple, towards 3,000 euros a year!) per year per person.

The covering letter to Mr. Lansley also says:-

The above statement seems extraordinary and the situation has arisen, I am sure, without malicious intent.

The Regulations on which these payments are based are complicated and overly bureaucratic. They are based upon a system which pre-existed the accession of the United Kingdom to the EU in 1973.

In this electronic age the existing hugely inaccurate system could be replaced by another whereby the actual payments could be transmitted by electronic means, eliminating a great deal of waste.

---
The document is viewable at
http://lefourquet.net/Healthcosts.html or
http://lefourquet.net/Healthcosts.doc
Please read it. It is not light reading. There are references to all the EU regulations which touch on this matter.
I will be happy to receive your observations.