Minister Frédéric Valletoux wishes to open a discussion on the list of long-term conditions, which “dates from the 1980s”

Invited Friday on franceinfo, the Minister of Health, Frédéric Valletoux, clarifies his controversial remarks about the current system for managing long-term conditions.

The Minister Delegate in charge of Health and Prevention, Frédéric Valletoux, clarified, Friday March 8, on franceinfo his plan to save on long-term illnesses (ALD) while he declared last week to the National Assembly that he wanted “think about relevance” of the current ALD support system, which represents “two thirds of reimbursements” of Health Insurance.

He explains that he wants “open a discussion with patient associations and doctors” on the ALD list, which dates from the 1980s. “Maybe when we arrive, we won’t touch anything in the system,” which concerns 13 million people in France, he says while work on the subject is underway.

“There is no question of weakening our social pact”

25 associations of chronically ill people (cancer, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc.) wrote to him to express their concerns. The minister points “perhaps a somewhat rapid reading of the comments I had: I did say that we would not touch ALD in the sense that those who need to be supported in their pathology, in their illness, will continue to be so through national solidarity, through the health insurance system.“According to him, it is a matter of“an acquired fact”. “There is no question of weakening, of taking a swipe at what is at the heart of our social pact”he wants to reassure.

“However, the list of ALD dates from the 1980s: the idea is not to restrict rights, it is to see if it is still relevant, in supporting pathologies which mobilizes enormous expenditure from the Health insurance today, to include pathologies which over time, that is to say forty years”, have known “enormous medical progress”the minister justifies himself.