Reduce the "gap" of 95.7 billion euros of state will take time. Further action on pensions would give the impression that the reform of 2010 was insufficient. And the government did not hand over the finances of local governments. To give a visible signal of declining deficits before the presidential election, the government has a priority: Medicare. The hole is "halved between 2010 and 2012," has already promised the Minister of Budget and Public Accounts, Valérie Pécresse. This should reduce it to less than 6 billion euros.
To do so, Medicare will benefit from additional revenue: it will recover much of the 10 billion of additional levies announced in late August, by François Fillon. But it will also make an effort on his expenses.The aim will be to contain their rising to 2.8% (against 2.9% this year), which means 2.2 billion savings from the spontaneous progression.
The distribution of these savings will be presented Thursday by the government, which unveiled the outline of the proposed 2012 budget of Social Security, along with the latest forecasts of deficit, which is less than 18 billion euros for 2011. It's the drug industry that should be first put to use.
Price reductions, which in recent years revolved around 500 million euros a year, this year will be closer to 650-700 million, according to notifications sent to laboratories already. The delisting will be added.
Whereas in the past it was often compromised, including inventing a "orange sticker" reimbursed by the social security 15%, the government should not hesitate this time to completely delisted drugs ineffective quick guaranteed personal loans.
The warning laboratories
Mediator since the affair, the French no longer have absolute faith in drugs, which should make it less difficult such a measure. Benefit Schedule: as price reductions, the exclusions from reimbursement are also savings in complementary, as they also leave the drugs in question from the list of products they support.Now the government wants reconciliation with the complementary, after having inflicted one billion euros in additional tax.
Leem, the association of laboratories and underlines that these measures in 2012 will coincide with the expiration of many patents, according to his representative estimates 1.2 billion in sales, against an average of 700 to 800 million the previous year.Add to this bill on the drug prepared by the Minister Xavier Bertrand after the scandal of the Mediator, Leem fear next year an unprecedented decline-of-sales of the pharmaceutical industry, which could reach a % or 2%.
In addition, samples should increase: for, an increase in the special tax on the turnover of laboratories (currently set at 1%, it could return to its former level, or 1.7%) and contribute indirectly to fund new training for doctors, via the state.
Leem warned against further reductions, particularly among sales representatives, and against a "climate of distrust" that would push the major international laboratories to prefer other countries to invest in research or production.
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