It sounds too good to be true. In France, hospital care is free, medical services are available to all and the only waiting lists are for organ transplants - because of a shortage of donors. The World Health Organisation recently rated the French healthcare system the best in the world.
Mrs Tala Skari, an American married to a Frenchman, prefers the French system to the privatised healthcare she knew in the US. When her daughter's fingers were cut by a skater's blades in an ice-skating rink this summer, Mrs Skari rushed the child to the hospital emergency room. Surgeons operated on seven-year-old Oona's hand for over an hour. The family made four return visits to have her bandages changed and stitches removed. Total bill: Ffr 67.12 (£8.06).
"If you have a family in France, it's tremendously comforting to know that you will never have to worry about healthcare or education," Mrs Skari says.
"You know you won't be turned away at the hospital door because you don't have private health insurance or a credit card. And you don't have to mortgage your house if you get a serious illness."
She compares the care she received when Oona was born - seven nights in a private clinic, paid for entirely by social security and her mutuelle, a non-profit insurance company - with the difficulties encountered by her best friend in New York. "After the first night, the hospital tried to send her and the baby home because the insurance company would only pay for one night. She had to argue with the insurance company on the phone to get a second night in hospital."
France established its social security system in 1945; it was intended to be universal, but farmers preferred to keep their own welfare organisation, and a separate arrangement had to be made for the self-employed. Nonetheless, the 90 per cent of the French population who are, or have been, salaried employees, and their dependants, are guaranteed healthcare under the national medical insurance programme.
The system is financed by social security charges withheld from monthly salaries. Pensions and unemployment insurance are part of the same lump payment, which is why it is so expensive - 70 per cent over and above an employee's salary. In other words, social security payments for a Frenchman who earns Ffr 10,000 a month are an additional Ffr 7,000, of which the employer pays Ffr 4,500 and the employee Ffr 2,500.
With the revenue from these monthly payments, "la secu" - as the social security administration is known to all - pays hospital bills directly. Patients may be charged low catering fees for meals, and can opt to pay extra for a private room, telephone or television.
The system is more bureaucratic for out-patient care, where the patient must settle bills and then wait for reimbursement. Social security pays only 70 per cent of doctors' bills, according to a national fee schedule agreed between doctors' unions and the government. Prescription medicine is partially reimbursed, on a sliding scale from 30 to 60 per cent.
To make up the difference, most employers provide membership in a non-profit mutuelle or private insurance company, as a fringe benefit. In the rare cases where they do not, individuals may subscribe on their own.
But because French doctors are free to practise privately - and abandon the national fee schedule - some of their bills surpass even the amount private insurers are willing to pay. The difference comes from the patient's pocket and accounts for the 12 per cent of medical costs in France that is paid by individuals.
The main incentive for doctors to charge the national fees is that the state will pay their pension. The Jospin government realised that poor people were least likely to have a mutuelle and that they were reluctant to seek outpatient care because of the 30 per cent they would have to pay. To correct this inequity, the law on couverture de maladie universelle (CMU) was passed in 1999, guaranteeing 100 per cent payment by the state for the poorest.
France has the highest number of cardiologists in Europe and boasts excellent emergency care for serious accidents, cancer treatment and post-natal care for infants. But it has performed poorly in preventive medicine, especially among the poor.
A recent study published by INSERM, the French medical institute, demonstrated the vast progress made during the past century. Life expectancy has nearly doubled - men have "gained" more than 30 years and women 35 years; death due to heart disease decreased by 30 per cent between 1970 and 1990.
Yet France remains the European country with the greatest difference between social classes in terms of longevity; on average, an engineer lives six years longer than a manual labourer. Experts say that access to healthcare is basically equal and that different habits - chiefly alcohol and cigarette consumption - explain the disparity.