France insurance

Partly from the fact that less labor is required In managing the operation, whilst a regularity in the pro-. duce is, in some measure, insured, and partly from the circumstance that there always exists a supply of material at hand in every peat district, which would render the expense of removal of furnaces unnecessary when once erected, the system of charring in kilns bos been resorted to with advantage. Furnaces or kilas arc employed near Meaux in France, in UaBt Friesland, and Bohemia, to a considerable extent. 

Descriptions of the French regulatory processes appeared to be well-understood by all the interviewees in France. With the exception of restrictions on consumer products, enforcement ultimately occurs at the local level through the Regional Departments and social insurance inspectors. Statistics provided by the French industry trade associations helps prioritise enforcement activities while guiding political goals at the ministerial level. 

Category B medicines of great social and therapeutic value (treatment of heart diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, antibiotics, corticosteroids, antipsychotics). The co-payment (with a maximum amount of 355 Belgian Francs [BF]) is 25 percent for normal insured people and 15 percent for people with a special tariff (pensioners, widows, orphans and invalids). This maximum is adapted each year to the national index figures. 

In France, activation is achieved by means of a strict control of access to social security. Here, it has to be distinguished between non-contributoiy systems for the needy and contributory insurance systems, i.e. the insurances branches which attribute social benefits on the basis of former payment of social contributions. But job seekers who are not entitled to such social benefits may have access to activation measures with the objective to get a job, especially by special contracts, i.e. contrats aides. ... 

Virtually all other industrialized countries have national health insurance programs that include prescription drug benefits. Good examples, later in this chapter, are Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom, which illustrate what other nations are currently doing to control expenditures for prescription drugs and what these controls mean for revenues from new drugs yet to be developed. 

OTA reviewed recent trends in payment methods for prescription drugs in five countries Australia, Canada, France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. To a greater or lesser extent in each of these countries, drug payment policy is governed by two potentially conflicting objectives to minimize health insurance prescription drug costs and to help the country s domestic pharmaceutical industry. Payment policies represent a blend between these objectives. 

Despite the seemingly high copayment requirements, the French have very low unreimbursed expenses. Numerous classes of people and chronic treatments are exempted from copayments. About 80 percent of the population belongs to supplementary insurance funds, or mutuelles, which pay for the bulk of the patient s drug costs, leaving only minimal copayments. Although 56 percent of prescriptions in France required some copayment in 1991 (381), most were very low. Thus, French consumers have little price sensitivity (67,174). 

In France, despite co-payment for drugs, prescription drugs are virtually free for the 80% of the population who enjoyed supplemental insurance in 1990. The supplemental private companies or co-operatives reimburse most or all of the co-payments. The recent law on universal health insurance coverage will extend this supplemental insurance to 100% of the population [5], Such exemptions, and reinsurance options for the population, offset the effect of co-payment in reducing the use of drugs that are not needed, or too expensive. Of OECD countries only Austria, Germany, Japan, Spain and Switzerland have officially excluded such a cost shifting by reinsurance in second-tier payment systems (Table 1). 

Fuel reprocessing Commercial-scale reprocessing of irradiated spent fuel from nuclear power facilities to recover uranium and plutonium is performed only in France and the UK. Some other countries such as Japan, India, and the Netherlands have small facilities. The used fuel elements contain high levels of radioactive materials. But remote operations and heavy shielding insure a low annual effective dose of 1.5 mSv for the workers. 

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