“Motivate yourself” The French: This is the argument that President Emmanuel Macron puts forward to defend the doubling of deductibles for medical purposes, although these amounts remain the responsibility of patients when they buy medicines or visit a doctor. Interviewed by a journalist about this sensitive issue, Tuesday, January 16, during his televised interventionMr Macron has made it clear that he supports this lever to save health spending.

End of tension? The executive has been stalling for six months on a measure that will affect the purchasing power of the French, against a background of increasingly difficult access to health care and a persistent shortage of medicines.

“When I see what our compatriots can spend on telephone tariffs, daily life, etc. … When I consider that we go from 50 cents to 1 euro for a pack of medicines, I don’t feel that we are committing to this terrible crime “, he said. 50 cents is the amount that was not reimbursed for each pack of medication in 2008 during Nicolas Sarkozy’s five-year term and has not changed since then.

“That doesn’t shock me.”, “This is a good measure”, continued Mr. Macron, while this path proposed by Bercy in June 2023 should make it possible to achieve savings of 800 million euros. The head of state confirmed that the ” Ceiling “ The current flat rate of 50 euros per year per patient should be retained so that long-term sick people – i.e. chronically ill people – are not disadvantaged by this increase in the “residual compensation”. Before his resignation in December 2023Former Health Minister Aurélien Rousseau estimated the impact of doubling deductibles would be an average of 17 euros more per person per year.

The amount may seem modest, but it is no less controversial: doubling deductibles in the event of illness has been denounced as a problem for months “health tax” in the ranks of carers and patients, but also on the left side of the chamber, where this autumn, when deputies examined the social security budget, they continued to demand that the government lay down its cards and be transparent about this measure.

Fighting medical deserts

It remains to be seen how it will be implemented within the new government, where Catherine Vautrin took over the leadership of a large ministry that combines health, work and solidarity. “Without a committed minister”, regret those who work in healthcare. The name of Agnès Pannier-Runacher, former energy transition minister, is being floated for the post of health minister.

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