An abyssal hole. The health insurance deficit should widen much more deeply, if we judge the alarmist forecasts published at the end of December by the High Council for the future of Health Insurance (HCAAM) and reported by Le Figaro.
From 7.7 billion in 2013, the deficit should double in 2020 to climb to 14 billion euros. Far from slowing down afterwards, this vertiginous increase should continue to rise until 2040, when the deficit should be around 41 billion euros!
The explanation is simple: the growth in health expenditure will be much higher than the increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP). “The growth of health expenditure is spontaneously faster than that of the gross domestic product, which would contribute to increasing the public deficit of the compulsory schemes by 2060”, notes the HCAAM.
The aging of the population is not the factor that “leads” the most health insurance accounts. “Technical progress and the organization of care appear to be major contributors to health expenditure in the projections”, specifies the HCAAM, quoted by AFP.
To curb this increase in the deficit, the High Council recommends better control of spending. This better management could pass for example by the revision of “the relevance of certain acts or certain hospital stays”. New reimbursements for “unnecessary care” cannot be ruled out.