Healing could now cost more. From 2024, the medical deductible and the flat-rate contribution could double, so that the State can save money. Announced in June by Bruno Le Maire, Minister of the Economy, this measure, which would fall within the framework of the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS) 2024, worries unions, professionals and patients, who fear a decline in purchasing power, explains Le Parisien.
Bruno Le Maire’s idea is therefore, on the one hand, to increase the medical deductible, which has not changed since 2008. Currently, when buying a box of medicines reimbursed by Social Security, 50 euro cents remain payable by the patient. The amount is the same for paramedical interventions (nursing care or physiotherapy sessions). The deductible reaches 2 euros for medical transport.
In the PLFSS 2024, this franchise would be doubled, according to Les Échos. “If the measure goes to the end, we would be in double, triple, quadruple trouble. The French can no longer find a doctor, they struggle to get an appointment with a specialist… And now they are financially punished! “, Plague Gérard Raymond, the president of France Assos Santé, the largest federation of health users, for whom the government would sanction the fact of being sick.
But this decision, which makes some members of the majority cringe, is far from being recorded.
Doubling the medical deductible would save less than a billion euros per year, according to Bercy. Unless the ceiling doesn’t move. Because, currently, the cumulative ceilings payable by the patient cannot exceed 50 euros per year. If exceeded, it is fully refunded. “If this ceiling does not increase, the impact on patients should actually be minimal,” said Philippe Besset, president of the first union of community pharmacists. According to him, it is this ceiling that must be closely monitored.