The left in the National Assembly strongly criticizes the government which targets health expenditure (drugs and sick leave) to save money.
The leader of the LFI deputies Mathilde Panot on Tuesday denounced the “social abuse” and the “brutality” of the government’s announcements to reduce health spending, in unison with the Socialists, auguring heated debates on the 2024 budget this fall. .
The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire identified Monday “at least 10 billion euros in savings” to restore public finances, particularly in the health sector, by fighting against the explosion of sick leaves and “the excesses” in drug expenditure. “Bruno Le Maire has once again announced yet another brutality and social mistreatment of our country”, lambasted Mathilde Panot during her group’s weekly press briefing at the National Assembly. “The question of sick leave (…) it is again social fraud that they would try to sell to us to better hide tax fraud in particular. It is unacceptable”.
During the press conference of the socialist deputies, the spokesperson for the group Christine Pires Beaune found “particularly deplorable that we put forward a minority of doctors” who would sign abusive work stoppages. “When we have work stoppages that explode, as is the case especially since the Covid, we have to wonder. I would like us to have an analysis of work stoppages”, she lamented.
“The Without Rights”
Mathilde Panot also pointed to the 500 million dental costs that Social Security wants to transfer to complementary health from October, by lowering coverage from 70 to 60%. “One in three French people give up dental treatment for financial reasons. Those whom Mr. Hollande called with a certain contempt the toothless come back with Mr. Macron as those without rights”, criticized Mathilde Panot. “We are headwind against this measure which will cause disasters”.
Conversely in the presidential camp, the president of the Renaissance group Aurore Bergé defended the government’s “budget line of responsibility”, “which is never the easiest to hold” and “means making choices to protect the French”.
The executive unveiled savings proposals on Monday, a “step” to contribute by 2027 to the recovery of public accounts. They must partly feed the draft budget for 2024 which will be presented in September and will require at least 12 billion euros in savings for this year alone, said a source at Bercy.
After having recently escaped the sanction of the rating agency S&P Global, which maintained its French solvency rating, the government intends to reaffirm its budgetary seriousness and turn the page on the expensive support measures of “whatever the cost ” in the face of health and energy crises.