QWhat does this mean, morally, the planned abolition of state medical aid (AME)? What does the loss of this legal aid system for undocumented foreigners, the poor among the poor, mean by the vote in the Senate on November 7? To these questions, the legislator responded: no longer waste public money trying to care for individuals who would come, with full knowledge of the facts, and in some way eat the bread of the French.
In this case, being excluded from national solidarity measures in the name of a claimed illiberalism: health for all citizens, on condition of proving one’s belonging to the political community which the refugee – the supposed medical tourist – cannot do. . Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) warns us: “It has been shown that man can lose all the so-called “man” rights without losing his essential human quality, his human dignity. Only the loss of the political community can eject man from humanity. »
In his 1949 book, There is only one human right (available from Payot, 2021), the philosopher is concerned about this loss of all rights, judging that only the recognition of man as a citizen would allow him to have rights. From this perspective, the outlaw cannot claim it: “Their condition cannot be defined by inequality before the law, because for them there is no law at all; it is not the fact of being oppressed that characterizes them, but that no one even tries to oppress them. » Their right to life – to health here – “is only called into question at the very last stage of a long process; it is only once they are completely “superfluous”, and there is no one left to claim them, that their lives are in danger. »
The arguments are beyond criticism.
Is it not towards this oppressive future that the senators would like to lead us? Because, in fact, by this vote, they assume – against any scientific argument linking suppression of the AME and risk for public health – that giving the other, suffering, the possibility of treatment in our homeland would necessarily lead to, on the one hand an unbearable cost for our public finances, on the other hand the arrival of a foreign and poor crowd, profiting from our funds. Even dangerous for our safety!
The reactions of doctors – in a column in the World of November 2 “The appeal of 3,000 caregivers: “We ask for the maintenance of state medical aid for the care of foreigners” » – were not long in coming after the announcement of this abolition of the AME, replaced by emergency medical aid.
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