BigNick
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
The intention of the French system is that everyone should be covered. You can see this in how the billing is set up; someone who turns up at a hospital with no insurance is a rarity, and causes the admin people to go "Errr, OK, well, let's treat the patient first and we'll sort out the billing later". This happened to a friend of mine, visiting from England, who was injured in a cricket game: I took him to the ER where they stitched him up, and he gave them his address and showed ID, but no bill ever arrived.
The rack rate for a hospital stay (bed, board, and basic nursing) is around €1,000 per day, although most people never see the bill. A short visit to the general practitioner is about €25, a bit more in some big cities. Half an hour with a specialist costs €50-100.
However, the administration of the insurance is based around employee and employer payroll deductions (the latter being notoriously high in France, up to 70%), rather than general taxation as is the case in, say, the UK or (I believe) Canada. (OK, in the UK there is notionally a deduction called "National Insurance", but there is barely any hypothecation.)
When the OP gets to pensionable age, he will get free lifetime cover (with some deductibles) by virtue of having a French retirement pension, provided he paid contributions for just three financial quarters in his entire working life. But early retirement doesn't really exist in France; until at least age 62 (unless you're in a specific job, like law enforcement or firefighting), you are assumed to be working. If the OP hadn't started his little company, he would probably need to claim unemployment benefits, whereupon he would be covered that way.
I also have one of these mini-companies (I presume the OP is an "auto-entrepreneur" like me). Amazingly for France, where starting a regular business is a major PITA, this type of company is incredibly easy to set up. I can bill up to €32,000 per year for professional services. Once a quarter, I fill in an online form (this takes less than one minute; there is only one number to enter!) to declare how much I made in the last three months, and they then take a total of 24% of that amount from my bank account for social insurance and income tax (which is great, as my marginal tax rate is 30% with my pension!).
Even more amazingly, there is no minimum declaration or payment; in fact I can declare zero income for up to two years and still remain covered. The downside is that I can't deduct *any* expenses (partial rent for office space, car mileage, VAT, etc), but for part-time consulting and other intellectual services it's a fabulous model.
