Grandstand. In politics as in life, one must be wary of those who profess that taking away a right from others would add a new one to oneself. They probably imagine that society is like an Excel table, where subtracting a column would make its neighbor grow by the same amount…
But society is not a calculation software, it is a living body where each individual (which means “indivisible”) is intimately linked, intertwined with its neighbours. Our language does not say anything else when it speaks of “social body”. It’s true, in an accounting file we deduce, we “subtract” easily. In a body, cutting off an ear has never caused a toe to grow back…
This social body exists even more, and one could say “viscerally”, in health: it is the expression of a biological reality. We meet in the street, in public transport, at work, during our leisure time, women and men whom we do not know if they are French, foreign, in a regular situation or not: the simple fact of breathing the same air links our destiny to that of thousands of strangers. No ideology here, just the law of life.
How, then, can a single cell of this social body be denied access to care? Doing so would expose us all. It is this idea which prevailed, in 2000, with the creation of the medical aid of State (AME), opening to the people in irregular situation the access to the essential medical care. Its beneficiaries, who are very poor (two thirds are in “food insecurity”), are particularly exposed because of their living conditions: the prevalence of diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis and HIV is much higher than average.
Designed to protect the social body as a whole (who wants tuberculosis to circulate at a high level in France?), the AME quickly became a totem for the rights. Accused of encouraging welfare, of attracting immigrants wishing to seek free treatment, or even of allowing “Georgian women to get paid for cosmetic surgeries”as said Stanislas Guerini in 2019, before retracting.
The totems are only chimeras resulting from our imagination. Building a fantasy out of wood, stone or words does not make it more real. The truth: the AME is reserved for foreigners present illegally for more than three months (after expiry of the three-month tourist visa).
One same humanity
What seriously ill would undertake a long journey and then wait at least six months before being treated? The figures from Medicare are eloquent: only 51% of possible beneficiaries have recourse to the AME. Why ? Most are unaware of its existence or, if they know it, are reluctant to go to the hospital for fear of being arrested and deported.
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