The medical insurance covers the freelances as well as the employees or the civil servents, unemployed people, pensioners, disabled, students, etc and all the dependents: partners, next of kin, children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc.
Two conditions give rights to the medical insurance benefits:
Health benefits include:
If you go to visit your GP, you need usually to pay the full price of the visit. Then you contact the insurance with your prescription and you get the refund. Most of the time you won't get the full refund and you will have to pay for a share called the "ticket modérateur" (25%).
For some people (widows, disabled, pensioners,...) there is a higher refund system (called préférentiel).
At the pharmacy, with a prescription of a GP, you won't have to pay the full amount, the refund rates are always applied directly (system of tiers payant). Depending on their efficiency and needs the specific medecines are grouped into 5 categories: personal share of 10% to 25% depending on the generic kind of drug and the status of the patient.
Beside the medecines, in thecase of hospital care, the share of the patient is a fixed amount..