QWhat does the planned abolition of state health aid (AME) mean morally? What does the loss of this legal system of assistance to undocumented aliens, the poor among the poor, mean through the Senate vote on November 7th? To these questions, the legislature responded: Stop wasting public money taking care of individuals who would come with full knowledge of the facts and, in a sense, eat the bread of the French.

In this case, the exclusion from national solidarity measures in the name of an alleged illiberalism: health for all citizens, on the condition that one has to prove one’s membership in the political community, which the refugee – the supposed medical tourist – cannot do. Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) warns us: “It has been shown that man can lose all so-called “human rights” without losing his essential human quality, his human dignity. Only the loss of political community can drive man from humanity. »

In his 1949 book There is only one human right (available at Payot, 2021), the philosopher is concerned about this loss of all rights and judges that only recognizing man as a citizen would give him rights. From this perspective, the outlaw cannot claim: “Their condition cannot be defined by inequality before the law, for for them there is no law at all; It is not the fact that they are oppressed that characterizes them, but that no one tries to oppress them. » Your right to life – here to health – “is only called into question at the very final stage of a long process; Only when they are completely “superfluous” and there is no one left to use them are their lives in danger. »

The arguments are beyond criticism.

Don’t the senators want to lead us into this depressing future? Indeed, in this vote they are assuming – contrary to every scientific argument linking the suppression of AME to a risk to public health – that the possibility of treatment in our home country would inevitably lead to the other, to the sufferer, to give the possibility of an unbearable burden on our public finances, on the other hand, the arrival of a foreign and poor crowd that benefits from our resources. Even dangerous for our safety!

The doctors’ reactions – in a column in World from November 2nd “ The call of 3,000 nurses : “We demand that state medical assistance for the care of foreigners be maintained.” » – were not long in coming after it was announced that the AME was being abolished and replaced by emergency medical assistance.

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