The Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist, announced Thursday July 23 on RMC the doubling, from €100 to €200, of the annual ceiling for medical deductibles on consultations and medications, i.e. the maximum amount remaining payable by patients.
“The French, if they exceed a number of consultations or a number of boxes of medicine, today pay, if they are at most, €100 per year. What we are doing is that we are doubling this ceiling which has not changed for twenty years,” she clarified, adding that a decree was in preparation to implement the measure.
“If you are someone who has a chronic illness, on average, it is €78 per year currently, so if we double it, we can estimate that it will be more like €150 than €200,” said the minister. A flat rate contribution of €2 is requested from adult patients for all consultations or procedures carried out by a doctor, but also for radiological examinations and medical biology analyses. This contribution cannot currently exceed €8 per day and €50 per year.
For medicines, a deductible of one euro per box is applied, with today also the annual ceiling of €50. The amounts of the franchises themselves are frozen, it is the annual ceiling which will be doubled, specified the Minister of Health, who justified this measure by the need to “continue to invest in our hospital”, for “access to care” and “to still have the most effective medicines”.
Stéphanie Rist stressed that 18 million French people, pregnant women or minors, are not affected by these franchises.
