To honor the upgradings of liberal doctors, the Minister of the Economy raised the Ondam to 2.1%. The Court of Auditors had called for controlling health spending.
In order to promote access to healthcare for the most disadvantaged, the Court of Auditors on Tuesday called on Health Insurance to continue reducing health deficits. In its annual report on the application of social security financing laws published yesterday, she said that the sickness branch has recorded a constant deficit for twenty-five years and in 2015 weighed on 85% of the deficit of the general scheme.
The wise men of rue Cambon (Paris) alert in particular to the number of patients with long-term illnesses (ALD), covered at 100%, which has doubled in twenty years. And the cost of new treatments has also skyrocketed.
City and hospital
The government sees things quite differently with, in perspective, 2017. It has just committed more than a billion euros in new health spending. “We have taken the decision to raise the health expenditure target (Ondam) to 2.1%, i.e. a reinforcement of 700 million euros, in particular following the new negotiated medical agreement for general practitioners and the increase the index point in the hospital public service ”(400 million euros), said Michel Sapin, Minister of the Economy during his presentation of the major macroeconomic balances of the autumn financial texts. This instead of the 1.75% which was previously included in the government’s three-year savings plan (stability pact), a historically low rate, have often denounced the medical unions.
But the bill could be even higher for the government, since clinics are also calling for means to increase their nurses. The wage bill in the hospital world could thus be 860 million next year, calculated the newspaper The echoes.
A lower deficit than expected
For its part, the Court of Auditors had suggested a freeze on revaluations in city medicine in the event of a proven risk of slippage next year, evoking the possible “setting aside of all or part of the additional expenditure induced by the tariff increases in order to prevent a risk of non-compliance with the set objective ”.
A few months before the presidential election, the announcement of Bercy could calm the medical professions who often judge very severely the record of Marisol Touraine, in terms of health.
To defend it, the latter will surely recall that the deficit of the sickness branch would be 5.2 billion euros in 2016. This is less than what was expected, she welcomed recently. The war of numbers continues …
.