lundi, décembre 28, 2009

Free pairs of glasses and free foot treatment

The title is a little misleading. There is no such thing as free lunches. I pay taxes (a lot indeed by Singaporean's standard) and my company pays my private health insurance. So it is natural that I do not have to pay certain health related services and goods.

Coming from a country where we have to pay out of our own pockets for a pair of glasses and also medical bills, I am still not used to this social system. Furthermore, my glasses cost me about 750€ and my medical treatment was in Singapore.

As mentioned about 3 years back when I made my first pair of glasses in France, I did not have to pay a single cent. OK. Maybe 3€ max. This was because I have good company health insurance. When I changed job, the coverage on glasses was even better. I could spend up to 1000€ on eyewear (frame + glasses). As usual, I think the optical shops here charge autrocious price for glasses. It is really to the limit of what I call "abusing". The optical shop I went to was kind enough to throw in a pair of glasses for free.

And back to my accident in Singapore, I incurred a total of about 200€ in medical bills. The travel insurance guy told me to claim back my bills from social security and my mutuelle first. Then would he cover the rest of the amount. Usually, social security only accepts medical claims
from the European Union countries. As I had an accident while visiting my home country, SS accepted my claims and gave me half the money back. A week later, my mutuelle gave me the other half. How cool.

No wonder my mutuelle is increasing its price and SS is having a big hole in its pocket. But well, c'est la France et vive la France!

4 commentaires:

Dumdad a dit…

Hi,

Yes, it's medical madness in France concerning the high costs of drugs and treatments etc but we do get to claim most of it back, thank goodness.

Your last post about used diaper bins brings back memories of when my two kids were babies (they're now 15 and 12). We had a used nappy contraption and it was worth every penny.

And when we emptied it there was this long nappy-like snake to dispose of. But no smell.

sohcool a dit…

Hi Dumdad,
Thanks for visiting.
I guess used diaper bins are really a cool innovation indeed.

Beau Lotus 涟 a dit…

Miss French SS, Italian SS sucks and costs more every month somemore.

When I was wearing glasses, I got mine in Paris for almost the same price (after SS and mutuelle) as what I would pay in S'pore without anything. So I always had my glasses made in S'pore at my long-term optical shop.

Anonyme a dit…

Bonjour,
je suis nouveau ici j'aime vous lire ;)
je voulais vous remercier pour votre super site internet !
Bonne continuation
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Nicolaseo, Rien de mieux que le referencement naturel.