Your note got me wondering Russell so I had a look at my script. The Entresto alone is €140, good stuff though. It’s got my heart back to full function after a dodgy period over Christmas. Eliquis (Apixaban) which is a sort of Aspirin GTI, is €62. Which is a bit of a bargain because it’s over $470 in the States.
I’m on other respiratory bits a bobs too since being hospitalised with flu over New Year. I don’t think I need them but the Pulmonologist reckons I should stay on them so I’ll be fighting fit for a dose of Covid 
. Though my French Cardiologist suspects it wasn’t the flu at Christmas but a touch of Covid. I must get an antibody test.
My total meds bill is €296.98 PM.
Good luck with that Russel, I hope you can squeeze in.
Ah. My meds were prescribed under the NHS where the cheapest available is the norm, but that said, they seem to be doing their job and I am not showing any problems some 10 years after the operation. Yours are prescribed under a private plan and may well be superior and that accounts for the higher cost - does your Irish insurance not give global cover?
Hopefully with an end June 2021 date for applying I should be comfortable, and the wife reaches state pension age in March as well (but would anyway be covered under mine).
While prescribed privately it’s the same stuff as everyone gets. Personally, I’m not in favour of private healthcare, I think everybody should have access to the same, hopefully excellent, care. I think private care should be limited to getting a single room, a bigger TV and a half bottle of red every evening 
Unfortunately the issue in Ireland is outrageous waiting lists. Mostly due to total incompetence on the part of Health Services Executive management and if you’re travelling back and forth you just can’t wait or necessarily be available when the system get’s around to you. Therefore… private. So IMO it’s my fault I can’t avail of the public service so it’s fair that I’m the one that has to pay. I’m very happy with the public service here in France and I would put it on a par with the private sector in Ireland (once you have a mutuelle for the room, TV and plonk). Though I was in hospital here in 1982 after a car accident and all the patients got a dinky of either red or white with dinner.
My two expensive drugs are still in parent so there are no cheaper generics yet. I’m all in favour of using generics to save cost when one can.
The Irish insurance only covers you in Ireland or, I think, up to 50K for emergency treatment abroad. At my age (67) it’s a further €159 for full travel cover world wide, excluding the US . I don’t generally take that out unless I’m traveling outside Europe because my Irish EHIC card covers me.
Presumably you are already here? Or soon to be? As personally I wouldn’t wait until 31/12/20! We joined health service when we arrived and paid the annual charges, and then when got to the state pension age it was straightforward to register the S1 and stop paying.
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Jane how much was the annual charge as i won’t be able to apply for an S1 until May 2022 (unless the goalposts change again!)
as a matter of interest how good are the NHS at actually realising you have moved? How would my GP know that I was no longer resident or how would a dentist know that my NHS number was extinct? Whenever I’ve been treated either as an outpatient or an emergency they appear to be using paper files and just use my name and birth date and sometimes a hospital number rather than an NHS number, On my GP record there is no mention of my outpatient visits to Moorfields or Harefield.
I believe that to enter the French Health System… you might well be asked for S1… or the UK form/letter which states that you do NOT have an entitlement to an S1…
this has happened recently with newcomers at CPAM before covid/shutdown.
In either case… surely UK would know you were in another country… and by issuing a form/letter which states you do NOT have UK entitlement I would expect the UK to simply tick a box (left UK) and let the computer do the rest ???
It’s complicated and so many variables.
Hope you do get things sorted…
Yes we are here, and (unintentionally) permanently since the beginning of the lockdown, but life is complicated. We own our home outright and have been living largely off a small pension and savings - my wife has a private pension of a little over €1,000 a month and I have a private pension pot that I can draw from as I like or need, but it will be much more straightforward to apply once my state pension kicks in as then we have demonstrable and quantifiable income to take us over the minimum threshhold, to say nothing of the S1 issue. Given that I can’t apply before early October anyway and the deadline is end of next June, the extra 11 weeks seems likely to simply make life more complicated than it already is with minimal benefit.
I actually work pretty much full time, but as a volunteer for a Paris based international charity so unpaid (we did talk last year about me converting to a paid position which would have made life administratively easier but would have required spending all week in Paris). Consequently my understanding is that I would need to take out full private health insurance if I register before being entitled to my S1 and I have pre-existing conditions of course. Maybe I am wrong - I have read conflicting advice on this but I have no gainful employment so can’t register as a micro-entrepreneur or similar.
Once you have been resident in France for three months you can apply to enter the French health system, no S1 is required but as Stella has pointed out you may well require a letter stating that you are no longer covered by the NHS.
The contribution is 8% of your income above a threshold of around 10,000€
It’s not as simple as that as a lot of pension income is exempt.
I think I read that he currently doesn’t have a pension as he’s only 64…
II’ve had an S1 for over 4 years and when I needed to see my previous GP in UK earlier this year they had no idea I lived abroad.
My S1 (as far as I am aware) is the form issued by UK acknowledging that UK is responsible for my health care costs in France… (up to the same level as a French citizen here in France) …
and that it entitles me to “stay on the UK books” as it were… for the UK Health System… should I need medical stuff when in UK… I will not be charged…
Thus my national insurance number is still valid… albeit I am no longer registered with UK Doc/Dentist/whatever…
Am I correct in this understanding… or has something changed… ???
answers on as postcard please… 
It’s shorthand for “keep it brief”… 