Hardly passed, the Health law is debated. The senators of the Republicans party immediately seized the Constitutional Council to ask for its revision.
Thing announced, thing due. The opposition party The Republicans seized Monday evening the Constitutional Council in order to denounce seven articles of the law to modernize the health system, voted in last reading last Thursday in the National Assembly.
They had then directly announced their intention to rely on the nine “Sages” of the Council, in order to remove provisions which they deem not in conformity with the constitution.
Three flagship measures of the law are particularly hotly contested: the generalization of third-party payment, the abolition of the reflection period before any abortion and the neutral cigarette packet.
Third party payers and entrepreneurial freedom
Regarding third-party payment, which will be generalized for all city consultations up to the amounts reimbursed by health insurance, the senators believe that it is contrary to the “freedom to undertake” doctors, a right enjoying ” a constitutional value, and deriving from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen of 1789.
In addition, they denounce an attack on the Social Security model, which counts among its fundamental principles “the payment of fees by the patient”, thus undermined by the principle of third party payment.
Neutral package and intellectual property
The neutral cigarette package adopted in Australia is a real public health success in this country, and was very much desired by the Minister of Health, Marisol Touraine, to fight against smoking among young people.
With this measure, the senators believe that the law violates the “right to property”, another fundamental constitutional principle, which is also found in the declaration of 1789.
To convince the members of the Constitutional Council, the senators advance the fact that the Council itself had decided, in 1991, that the mark was the constituent element of intellectual property. Its disappearance on the packages could therefore be considered as an infringement of the law, in accordance with this decision taken more than twenty years ago.
Senators also believe that the establishment of the neutral package could lead to the development of the black market and counterfeit packages, which could be detrimental to the very health of individuals.
Abortion and responsibility
As for the provision relating to abortion, the senators are categorical: by eliminating the period of reflection between the first and the second consultation, the law goes against a principle recalled in 2010 by the Court of Cassation, according to which any surgical intervention must be preceded by a moment of reflection, otherwise the liability of the practitioner may be engaged. For this reason, senators want this section of the health care law to be revised.
Among the other disputed provisions, the senators are also attacking provisions relating to the public hospital service, to territorial hospital groups or to the group action procedure, which can now be initiated in the health sector.
So many measures that they hope to see disappear quickly, by decision of the highest French legal body.
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