Despite the exit from Covid and the pension reform, Social Security will continue to accumulate debt in the future, warns the Court of Auditors on Wednesday in a report which calls for “vigorous reforms”, in particular in health expenditure .
After the rebound, the relapse. Returned from an abysmal deficit of almost 40 billion euros in 2020, the Scu should reduce its losses to around 8 billion in 2023, according to the last budget voted. Four years of crisis that the French will have to reimburse for another decade.
But the hole has not finished widening: from 2024 the deficit should worsen again, lead by old-age insurance that the pension reform should not make it possible to restore quickly, notes the Court of Auditors.
If we do not act, we will have no leeway to invest in education, climate transition or even health, warned its president Pierre Moscovici during a press conference.
Provide an unprecedented financial effort
In the next three years alone, more than 36 billion in additional debt are thus expected – even more if the government’s optimistic assumptions in terms of growth and employment do not materialize.
The risk of slippage is all the more likely as health expenditure will have to grow less quickly than inflation this year and next year, which has never happened in the recent past. This implies an unprecedented financial effort, notes the Court. The financial magistrates therefore affirm that more vigorous reforms (are) essential and recall their recent proposals targeting certain sectors such as medical imaging and radiotherapy.
They also suggest reviewing the organization of the Samu, with the bringing together of the existing call centers in each department and the increased use of ambulances without a doctor. The report also points out two blind spots of the pension reformby asking for an adjustment of survivors’ pensions and family rights, as well as a modernization of the special scheme for sailors, deemed obsolete and unfair.
Fraud on social benefits is also in the crosshairs of the Court, which quantifies the embezzlement of the order of 68 billion euros per year, indicated Mr. Moscovici, noting that too few means are devoted to controls – which mobilize less than 3,400 agents in all Scu funds. We need a change of scale, he insisted, slipping in passing that tackling healthcare professional fraud or beneficiaries of the RSA requires a certain political courage.
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