This is good news announced last night by the Minister of Health, and at the moment there is not that much. The balance of the general social security scheme and the old-age solidarity fund stood at -13.2 billion euros in 2014, i.e. 2.2 billion euros less than the 2013 balance. A figure that is also lower to the forecast established by the last social security financing law (LFSS).
While the examination of the health bill by the Social Affairs Commission began yesterday in the National Assembly, Marisol Touraine “opened a financial parenthesis”, reports The Parisianto announce that the 2014 balance sheet “will show an improvement in the accounts of the Social Security branches that is greater than expected and will drop below 10 billion euros”.
The deficit forecast in 2014 for Health Insurance was 11.7 billion euros, it should ultimately not exceed 9.7 billion: “a first since 2008”, underlines The Parisian.
To explain these results, which are clearly better than forecast, the Ministry of Health highlights a level of revenue “higher than what had been anticipated”, as well as “an effort to control public expenditure made by the Government, which results in spending one billion euros less than the forecast of the LFSS”.
Yet a few weeks ago, the 2014 figures from Health Insurance seemed rather alarmist. Reimbursements for health products were up sharply, as were those for nursing care and physiotherapy. Expenditure for the general scheme thus showed an increase of 3.1%, while the national objective for health insurance expenditure (ONDAM) had been set at 2.4%.
The Minister of Health then wanted to be reassuring, insisting on the provisional nature of these figures. Time seems to have proved him right since the ministry is now stressing, in the light of these new figures, that “for the fifth consecutive year, the national health insurance expenditure target has been perfectly controlled”.
The Ministers of Economy and Health nevertheless specified, in a joint press release, that these results were based on the accounts closed by the funds on March 17, and are therefore provisional. It will be necessary to wait until the end of June for the Court of Auditors to give its final opinion, after having carried out all the certification operations. Hoping that the good news is confirmed.
