After a final vote in the National Assembly, the Parliament definitively adopted, Monday, November 29, the draft budget of Social Security for 2022. This vote comes as France is threatened by a fifth wave of contaminations and the arrival of the new Omicron variant.
From “Exceptional means” have been mobilized for almost two years and “We will continue in this direction if the epidemic redoubles in intensity in the period to come and requires to take new measures”, said Minister Delegate Brigitte Bourguignon. However, the draft budget was designed as a way out of the health crisis was looming and provides, in 2022, only a budget of 4.9 billion euros for screening tests and vaccination against Covid. -19, possibly insufficient in a context of renewed epidemic.
Likewise, the “Social Security” deficit is expected to be 20.4 billion euros in 2022, after 33.5 billion in 2021. But “This budget is already exceeded” in this “Start of a meteoric wave”, launched Jean-Pierre Door for the group Les Républicains (LR), which voted against. The left did the same, fearing, like Boris Vallaud (Socialist Party), that “whatever the cost” of the executive during the crisis will be followed by the question: “who is it? cost ? “.
Extension of 1.7 billion euros for Medicare
“It is the whole building of Social Security that has been damaged” under this five-year term, criticized Pierre Dharréville (French Communist Party), worried about the last “Great Safety test balloon” put forward by Mr. Véran, who would take charge of all health reimbursements, but with the risk of a “Market choice”. The LRM-MoDem-Agir majority alone approved the draft budget, by show of hands.
The Senate dominated by the right had rejected, from the outset, this text for new reading last week, in particular, because it “Still does not provide for a strategy to restore Social Security accounts to balance after the crisis”, according to the general rapporteur Elisabeth Doineau (centrist).
An extension of 1.7 billion euros for Health Insurance in 2021 was added during the meeting, in particular for the hospital. The Ségur de la santé is continuing through this bill, with, at the end of the day, salary increases for nursing staff. But many elected representatives of the oppositions fear that this is enough to “Stop departures” and “The vocations crisis”.
Another flagship component: that in favor of the elderly with loss of autonomy. This mainly involves promoting home support, with increased funding for assistance services. The devices must increase in load, up to 1.3 billion in 2025, giving shape to the fifth branch of the “Sécu” dedicated to autonomy, created last year. But the oppositions point to a “Dead branch, because not funded” and deplore the absence of a specific old age law, as promised for a time.
Reimbursement of contraception, sessions with a psychologist and access to orthoptists
The parliamentarians offered a few moments of harmony, such as the extension to women aged 18 to 25 of the full coverage of contraception. To this bill, rich in daily measures, the deputies added an increased supervision of health centers, in particular dental and ophthalmological centers, after abuses ranging from mistreatment to mutilation and financial abuse.
And they translated Emmanuel Macron’s announcement at the end of September in favor of mental health: eight sessions with the psychologist could be covered by Medicare from the beginning of 2022 for children over three years and adults.
Direct access to orthoptists, who will be able in particular to prescribe glasses to some six million patients without consultation with an ophthalmologist, has, on the other hand, been the subject of debate. This provision was at the origin of a mobilization of ophthalmologists against what they see as a “Degradation of the quality of care”. Conversely, the government defends better access to visual care for the French, given the shortage of professionals. The Senate voted for some alterations to frame the measure.
Above all, the High Assembly has put on the table, without much hope, a gradual extension of the legal retirement age from 62 to 64 years from the 1966 generation, judging that there is urgency. “The conditions are not met” to relaunch the work of the pension reform, estimated at the beginning of November Emmanuel Macron, who postponed it to 2022.