2023-10-24 12:59:34
A new passage in force to be expected? The examination of a Social Security budget begins this Tuesday in the National Assembly. This is just as rejected by the opposition as that of the State, the first part of which was adopted last Wednesday by a 49.3. Here, underfinancing of health and the specter of an increase in medical deductibles are denounced, pending a new 49.3.
The unprecedented rejection in committee of this draft Social Security budget (PLFSS) has further reinforced the hypothesis of rapid recourse to this constitutional tool, for adoption without a vote at first reading of its “revenue” part. In this budget, the executive is aiming for a saving of 3.5 billion euros on spending in the health sector in 2024, via reductions in spending on medicines, analysis labs and even sick leave, as well as a reinforced fight against fraud.
“A transition budget”
After the surge of the Covid years, “it is a transition budget between ending the crisis and controlling spending, and a budget of responsibility”, argues Stéphanie Rist (Renaissance), general rapporteur of the text, which reviews the deficit of the Social security on the rise for 2023, to 8.8 billion euros, before 11.2 billion in 2024. The left, for its part, castigates a budget which “does nothing to solve the hospital crisis” and neglects the financing of addiction.
It is a text “without odor or taste because it is so locked by budgetary constraints,” says PS deputy Jérôme Guedj. He “is not sincere”, even attacks the environmentalist deputy Sébastien Peytavie, targeting an objective for the evolution of health insurance expenditure (+ 3.2%) that is too low and “unrealistic” forecasts. On the right, LR MP Yannick Neuder believes that “the account is not there”. “All stakeholders, public and private, make the same observation” for the hospital sector, he underlines, while RN MP Joëlle Melin denounces “planning attacks”.
A sensitive measure envisaged by the executive mobilizes all opposition, even if it does not formally appear in this PLFSS: the doubling of the remainder payable by policyholders for medicines (currently 50 cents per box) and consultations (1 euro). The impact of this increase in medical deductibles is included in the financial projections and excluding it would involve generating savings otherwise, argues a majority executive. The government will be able to decide by regulatory means, but the deputies want to be able to debate it.
Agirc-Arrco also in the viewfinder
Another explosive measure, although absent from the text, hovers over the debates: the contribution of Agirc-Arrco, the supplementary private pension fund, to participate in the “balance” of the retirement system. The social partners, who manage this scheme, have rejected the executive’s request to recover at least one billion euros from its surpluses. But the hypothesis of a government amendment to impose it bristles the opposition, who denounce in advance a “hold-up”.
A compromise also seems to be emerging between the executive and the Macronist deputies, around a limitation of exemptions from social contributions for employers on high salaries, which worries employers in the name of “competitiveness”.
Rather than removing exemptions from contributions between 2.5 and 3.5 times the minimum wage, defended by Renaissance MP Marc Ferracci and the left, it is an alternative proposal put forward by the same MP with his group which is favored of the government. Their amendment provides for a calculation of exemptions based on thresholds defined in euros, and no longer as a multiple of the minimum wage, to prevent them from “expanding” at the rate of increases in the minimum wage.
The savings generated would depend on the threshold that would be retained by decree. “The orders of magnitude are a few hundred million euros,” according to Marc Ferracci. The government has also put new proposals on the table, such as granting “temporary status” for five years to therapeutic cannabis. Or the possibility for women of compensated work leave without a waiting period after a medical termination of pregnancy.
The use of 49.3 will allow the executive to obtain adoption without a vote at first reading of the “revenue” part of the PLFSS. Unless a motion of censure succeeds, improbable as long as the LR do not join in it. The government will be able to integrate the amendments of its choice, among the more than 3,000 tabled.
#Social #Security #budget #examined #Assembly #sight