The Sages of rue Cambon believe that better control of health spending requires, in particular, stricter negotiation of drug prices.
The results are satisfactory, but efforts still need to be made. In its latest report on Social Security accounts presented on Wednesday, the Court of Auditors welcomes the reduction in deficits, while pointing out several weaknesses.
Between 2015 and 2016, the deficit fell from 10.3 to 7 billion euros, its level before the economic crisis of 2008. Encouraging results but “fragile and incomplete”, warns the Court of Auditors. Because “the financial situation of Social Security is not yet healthy.”
The Sages of rue Cambon criticize the slowness of the rebalancing, and deplore that the return to balance is now set for 2020, or a year later than expected. A decline all the more regrettable as “the control of health expenditure is possible”, they assure.
Better control the price of drugs
To achieve this, the report explains that it is necessary, in particular, “to strengthen the control of drug costs”. In the chapter devoted to this issue, the authors of the report acknowledge that the negotiation of prices and the distribution of generics have actively participated in the reduction of these expenses, which amounted to 38.3 billion euros for the year 2016.
But the arrival of innovative and expensive drugs, especially in oncology, requires “strengthening the means” allocated to the price negotiating body, the Economic Committee for Health Products (CEPS), to enable it to be able to revise more regularly. drug prices.
The Court suggests that the law be amended to make mandatory a price review every 5 years for the most innovative molecules. A new negotiation could be launched after 3 years for the others.
Renegotiate the European price
Moreover, the Wise People believe that the mechanisms for setting prices at European level must be reviewed. Objective: to lower the prices of manufacturers. “The European price guarantee mechanism should be extended to other countries, its duration shortened and its scope restricted to drugs with a major, significant or moderate improvement in actual benefit (ASMR)”, recommends the report.
The body also advises the creation of “groups of public buyers at European level” to bring states together and bring transparency to price fixing systems. Measures which should be proposed by France because it is “the first country of price referencing in the OECD”.
.