2023-06-07 17:25:16
The page of the Covid crisis may be turned, but health spending is likely to get out of hand once more this year, social security finance experts warn in a notice published on Wednesday. “The dynamics at work on certain major expenditure items not directly linked to the crisis [sanitaire] might lead to exceeding” the budgetary targets, underlines the alert committee on the evolution of health insurance expenditure.
In recent years, spending has especially skidded with the cost of vaccination campaigns, Covid screening and other measures related to the health crisis. In 2023, the scenario is quite different. The billion euros provided for in the Social Security budget to deal with Covid (tests, vaccines) should be sufficient to cover the needs.
The cost of work stoppages on the rise
On the other hand, the Health Insurance sees rapidly inflating the cost of “health products”, such as drugs, as well as that of medical transport. Above all, Social Security must cope with the rapid rise in the cost of compensation for work stoppages.
This phenomenon, in the viewfinder of Bercy, in search of savings, is largely explained by the increase in the minimum wage and the average salary. It was already felt last year, which saw daily allowances increase by 7.9% over one year. Result: at the end of 2022, the amount of health expenditure observed (247.2 billion euros) was already higher than that taken into account to build the budget for 2023.
At this stage, the experts believe that there is no “serious risk” of budgetary slippage to trigger the alert mechanism (and the search for savings). However, “great vigilance appears necessary”, warns the alert committee which calls first to concretize “the planned savings measures”.
For the record, the Social Security budget for 2023 has planned to make savings on the cost of drugs and the services of medical analysis laboratories. The executive has also planned to transfer certain charges to health insurers which have not yet been specified.
Beyond these measures, the alert committee also suggests mobilizing “all the margins of execution and, as necessary, certain regulatory measures”. A small part of the envelopes are put in reserve at the beginning of the year.
The revaluations in question
Even if these recommendations are applied, the committee warns once morest the effects of possible salary increases in the public service and therefore in hospitals. Anxious to support the purchasing power of civil servants eaten away by inflation, the executive decided last year to grant an increase in the index point of 3.5%.
Under pressure from the unions, the government has just opened new discussions on the question of wages which might lead to announcements “during the month of June”.
In the event that the executive decides on “new measures having a significant effect” for 2023, it would be “difficult” to finance them, without going through an amending financing law or by rectifications in the 2024 budget, warns the committee alert.
Concerns for hospital finances
He is also concerned regarding other costs facing hospitals with inflation. The executive has already granted financial boosts to establishments to help them collect the increase in the cost of energy and other bills.
The “good calibration” of these measures “remains to be measured”, considers the committee recalling that it is important to avoid aggravating hospital deficits “already rising sharply in 2022”. Hospitals already believe that they need a budget extension.
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