the Minister of Health denounces “unsustainable” price increases

“It’s not tenable, I say it – and I will see them in a few days – to the mutual insurance companies.” The Minister of Health, Aurélien Rousseau, denounced the expected sharp increase in the prices of complementary health insurance. “Today they cannot make patients the adjustment variable of their economic model”he underlined Sunday December 3 on France 3, pleading for a more limited increase in “4 to 5%”.

Faced with a sharp increase in their reimbursements to policyholders, supplementary health insurance companies were concerned in October about the price increases that they will have to announce to their customers, blaming transfers of charges from Social Security to their expense.

Increases of 8 to 12.5%

The joint group AG2R La Mondiale will thus increase its contributions by “8 to 9%” in 2024, according to comments to Echoes of its leadership at the end of November. For the entire sector, increases should range from 8 to 12.5%, according to estimates a few weeks ago from the specialist Addactis.

“I don’t think it’s acceptable to have increases of +8%”underlined Aurélien Rousseau. “With inflation, with part of the costs that they have been asked to bear, an increase of 4 to 5% would be logical, 8% does not make sense, 10% a fortiori”added the minister, pleading that the adaptation of prices should not “lose purchasing power”. As for possible sanctions against mutual societies, “I don’t know, we’ll have a discussion first” with them, he stressed.