State medical aid: a report considers that it is “generally controlled”, but that it “deserves to be adapted”

2023-12-04 13:56:37

Its maintenance had recently been called into question by the Senate, during the examination of the immigration bill. State Medical Aid (AME) for undocumented foreigners is “generally controlled”, but “deserves to be adapted”, according to the report commissioned by the government from Claude Evin and Patrick Stefanini. The report, which underlines the “health usefulness” of the AME, points out the “limits and risks” of its replacement by more restrictive “emergency medical aid” as advocated by the right. However, it proposes a strengthening of controls and “eligibility criteria”, particularly with regard to family situation.

The government underlined following the publication of the document that “the proposals formulated by the rapporteurs may be subject to regulatory or legislative development in a specific text”. “For the record, no proposal relating to the AME can be integrated into the immigration bill currently under examination, these provisions being unrelated to the subject of the text (legislative rider)”, the government also recalled in his press release.

For the rapporteurs, the AME is “a regulatory framework, implemented and controlled professionally by the Health Insurance services and which does not generate healthcare consumption revealing atypicalities, abuse or fraud structural”. However, “past progress” in terms of strengthening controls “should not exempt us from considering new measures for the future”, “especially as the subject remains very sensitive”, add the two authors. .

The report notes that the increase in AME expenditure (which represented 968 million euros in 2022) is “largely correlated with that of the number of beneficiaries”, and that average quarterly consumption “remained stable despite the “increase in the cost of care”, going from “642 euros in 2009 to 604 euros in 2022”.