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The national health insurance system was established in 1945, just after the Second World War. It 'was a compromise between the Gaullist and Communist representatives in the French parliament. The Gaullist conservatives were opposed to a state health system, while the Communists are in favor of a full nationalization of health care along the English model Beveridge.
The resulting program is a profession-based: all workers are required to pay a portion of their income to a not-for-profit health insurance, which mutualises the risk of disease, which reimburses medical expenses at variable rates. Children and spouses of insured persons eligible for benefits, as well. Each fund is free to manage its own budget for the reimbursement of medical expenses at the rate he wants, but after a series of reforms in recent years, most funds provide the same level of benefits and reimbursment.
The government has two responsibilities in this system.

    * The first responsibility of government is setting the rate at which medical expenses should be negotiated, and does so in two ways: The Ministry of Health negotiates prices directly with manufacturers of medicine, based on the average selling price stated in neighboring countries. A committee of doctors and experts decide whether the medicine has quite a valuable advantage for medical reimbursement (note that most of medicine is reimbursed, including homeopathy). In parallel, the government sets the rate reimbursment for medical services, which means that a doctor is free to charge the fee that wish for a consultation or examination, but the social security system will be reimbursed only at a predetermined rate. These rates are set annually through negotiation with organizations representing physicians' offices.
    * The second is the responsibility of government control of health insurance funds, to ensure that they properly manage the money they receive, and to supervise the public hospital network.
Today, this system is more or less intact. All citizens and legal foreign residents in France are covered by one of these mandatory programs, which are financed with the participation of workers. However, since 1945, a number of important changes were introduced. First, the various funds of health care (there are five: General, Independent, agricultural, Student, Public Servants), now all pay the same rate. Secondly, since 2000, the government now provides health care to those who are not covered by a compulsory scheme (those who have never worked and who are not students, meaning rich or poor). This scheme, unlike those of workers-funded, is financed through general taxation and repay at a rate higher than the profession-based system for those who can not afford to make a difference. Finally, the effects of rising health care costs, the government has set up two floors (2004 and 2006), which require the insured people to declare a reference physician to be reimbursed in full for visits specalist, and has installed a mandatory co-payment of € 1 (about 1.45 U.S. dollars) for a doctor visit, 0.50 € (about 80 ¢) per package of prescribed medication, and a share of € 16-18 ($ 20-25) per day for hospital stays and expensive procedures.
An important element of the French insurance system is solidarity: the more ill a person becomes, the less the person who pays. This means that for people with serious or chronic illness, their insurance system reimburses 100% of the costs and waive their rights of co-payment.
Finally, the taxes will not cover the mandatory system, there is a wide range of private supplementary insurance plans available. The market for these programs is highly competitive and often subsidized by the employer, which means that premiums are generally modest. 85% of French people receiving supplementary private health insurance. [23] [24]
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