Lower prices, prescriptions or reimbursements: the executive is “studying all the levers” to save money on medicines within the framework of the 2024 budget, the director of Social Security, Franck von Lennep, said on Tuesday.
The pill will be bitter, but who will swallow it? Last week, the Minister of Economy, Bruno Le Maire, called to be “stricter with health spending, particularly with medicines.” Without specifying how, he revived speculation about a possible increase in medical deductibles borne by patients. But there are several options on the table and “we are studying all the levers,” Franck von Lennep declared during a meeting with the Association of Social Information Journalists.
Under the double supervision of Bercy and the Ministry of Health, the director of Social Security has outlined his ideas for the next budget that will be presented at the end of September. “We will have proposals on prices,” he said, without ignoring the “important demands of the industrialists” who, on the contrary, call for price increases.
No reduction in the reimbursement rate is expected
Another front could be opened with the doctors, also the Social Security wanting to deal with the “volumes” of prescriptions. “A doctor who prescribes has a very high public expense on his hands,” stressed Franck von Lennep, evoking the possibility that the Health Insurance resort to “previous agreements” but also to economic “incentives”.
The insured’s contribution, via an increase in deductibles (50 cents per box, maximum 50 euros per year), is also a hypothesis. “It’s not necessarily bad public policy for people to know what drugs cost,” Franck von Lennep said.
However, a reduction in the reimbursement rate, such as the one decided in mid-June on dental care, is excluded. “There is no other measure in this regard scheduled for 2024,” he said. Social Security also has less controversial sources, such as the development of biosimilar drugs, which represent “several hundred million euros of potential savings in the medium term.”
Source: BFM TV
