The oppositions inflicted a symbolic setback on the presidential camp, by rejecting this Friday in committee the draft Social Security budget for 2024, promised to be adopted next week in the hemicycle via a new recourse to 49.3. Before this global rejection, the articles setting the spending objectives of the different branches of Social Security had been deleted in turn, under the crossfire of opposition groups. “Your budget is not sincere,” launched the environmentalist deputy Sébastien Peytavie, targeting in particular an objective for the evolution of health insurance expenditure (+3.2%) considered insufficient and forecasts considered unrealistic in view of the needs and inflation.
In unison, left-wing groups also deplored insufficient measures for the care of dependent people. “The account is not there,” added LR MP Yannick Neuder, stressing that “all the actors, public and private, make the same observation” of insufficient resources for the hospital sector. “I’m a little stunned,” replied the Renaissance rapporteur of the Social Security financing bill (PLFSS), Stéphanie Rist, stressing that amendments adopted during the week had made it possible to improve certain provisions.
More than 11 billion deficit for Social Security in 2024
His Renaissance colleague Marc Ferracci criticized the oppositions “for deploring on the one hand that there are not enough debates and on the other hand sending all the necessary signals so that 49.3 arrives very quickly”. The presidential camp makes little secret of the planned use of this constitutional tool, which allows adoption without a vote, except for a vote of censure. The government will then have the choice of which amendments it will retain or not in the text.
The Social Security budget “cannot be presented by the government in its initial form in a public session next week”, estimated the communist group after the rejection in committee. The government is aiming in particular to save 3.5 billion euros on expenses in the health sector. It intends to achieve this objective in particular by reducing spending on medicines, analysis labs and sick leave, and the fight against fraud. It is these health expenses which mainly weigh down the Social Security accounts, whose deficit is revised upwards to 8.8 billion euros in 2023 then to 11.2 billion in 2024 in the PLFSS forecasts.