After the rebound, the relapse. Coming back from an abyssal deficit of almost 40 billion euros in 2020, the Social Security is expected to reduce its losses to around eight billion this year. Four years of crisis that the French will have to repay for another decade. And the hole has not finished widening, because, according to the Court of Auditors, from next year, the deficit should worsen again, weighed down by old-age insurance that even the reform of the financing of the system pensions should not make it possible to restore quickly.
>> Health: ambulances will soon be less well reimbursed by Social Security
Between 6 and 8 billion euros of fraud each year
Over the next three years, more than 36 billion euros of additional debt is expected, and even more if the government’s – rather optimistic – assumptions regarding growth and employment do not materialize.
The magistrates of the Court of Auditors point the finger at several subjects, such as fraud in social benefits. The institution quantifies the fruit of embezzlement between six and eight billion euros per year, despite the some 3,400 agents in all the Social Security funds. But the Court recognizes that tackling fraud by health professionals or beneficiaries of the RSA (active solidarity income) requires a certain political courage. Another blind spot denounced, the pension reform: the Court’s report calls for an adjustment of survivors’ pensions intended for widows or widowers, an adjustment also recommended for family rights.
No improvement in sight
According to the Court of Auditors, the postponement to 64 of the retirement age will not necessarily have the expected effects on the improvement of the social accounts in the short term. The reform will even represent an additional cost for Social Security until the end of 2024. As for health expenditure, they risk skidding.
A bill that is all the more difficult to control as the government promises new financial aid to caregivers. Hence the call for reforms that will have to be even more rigorous for more effective but less costly medical practices. In the viewfinder, the use of certain drugs such as antibiotics, unnecessary or redundant prescriptions, expenses related to medical imaging.