Thierry Beaudet was elected this Thursday at a general meeting at the head of Mutualité Française, for a five-year term. Until now, he held the post of vice-president.
It is a heavy weight of complementary health. The Mutualité Française (FNMF) unites 426 mutuals in France. Six in ten French people are protected by a mutual of this federation. This represents 18 million members and nearly 38 million people covered.
A juggernaut that has just changed its face. On the occasion of his general meeting, Thierry Beaudet, 54, was elected this Thursday as president of Mutualité Française. For a five-year term, the vice-president of the FNMF thus succeeds Etienne Caniard.
Former MGEN boss
In a press release, the one who was president of the MGEN group and of the Istya group is presented as a “committed activist”. He began his career in the 1980s as a teacher in the Académie de Caen. Then Thierry Beaudet quickly got involved. Detached from National Education, he first joined as a youth and popular education officer, and became secretary general and director of services for the Federation of Secular Works of the Orne in 1991.
It was in this position that he crossed paths with MGEN activists and launched into the mutualist movement. He became deputy director of the Calvados section in 1998. Then in 2003, he was elected administrator and member of the National Bureau, responsible for the network of service centers, then for development. President of MGEN since 2009, he drives the transformation of the company and the overhaul of its offer.
Appointment made with the doctors
During a speech in the presence of the Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, he first of all praised the action of his predecessor who, “throughout his mandate, worked in favor of access to healthcare for all” . Thierry Beaudet wishes to continue this fight. He returned to the DREES 2015 opinion barometer in which 90% of those questioned said they were personally concerned about poverty. “This situation, like all of you, calls out to me,” he insisted.
Words for the patients, and what about the doctors. The latter were, as we can imagine, very much on the lookout for the first words of the new president of the Mutualité Française. It should be remembered that it is the latter who fought with the public authorities for the generalized third-party payment to emerge. The technical system on which the waiver of advance fees will be based will also be managed by the complementary health insurance. A solution to which all the liberal doctors’ unions were opposed, fearing to lose their professional independence.
To reassure them, Thierry Beaudet declared: “We must establish the conditions for a solid partnership with healthcare professionals in the interest of patients, our members. In the coming months, I will ask to meet the unions of health professionals ”. “We have to exchange, to build cooperation respectful of the interests and the economy of each one, to work together to improve our system”, he added. Feared by doctors, he did not specify whether these partnerships referred to care networks. They are now only reserved for opticians, dentists and hearing aid specialists.
The generalization of complementary health insurance
A great social advance. It is in these terms that the government presented this reform of complementary health insurance, which entered into force in January 2016. Two years later the National Interprofessional Agreement (ANI) which laid the foundations, the reform constitutes one of the main components of government policy, to improve the financial access of the French to healthcare.
Up to now, 4 million employees, mainly in very small businesses and SMEs, have not benefited from any corporate health coverage. The idea of the reform was to reverse this trend, for the sake of equality between all assets in the private sector. New complementary health contracts were therefore negotiated, branch by branch, and all the companies that did not have one were able to offer them to their employees. However, if it started from a good feeling, the reform does not only have followers. Some fear in particular that it gives too much power to complementary, and that it leads to a form of two-tier medicine. With winners and losers.
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