FRENCH HEALTH CARE SPENDING FORECASTS

Around 10,000 French health care professionals - health fund administrators, doctors, hospital staff and drug companies - believe that health spending will continue to rise to 1998, and that the social security system will reimburse less and less of this spending, says a study conducted by Andersen Consulting. Parallel with the reimbursement cuts will be the expansion of complementary insurance arrangements, said those polled.

The survey concludes that French health care will go through five major phases before 1998. First, costs will go on rising, though the survey reported differing views on the government's ability to control costs. The best guesstimate is that spending will grow 0.5% to 2% of Gross Domestic Product, faster than in other European countries. This will reflect the aging population, the AIDS epidemic, the development of medical technology, medical demography and the more complex character of medicine.

Second, the element of solidarity on which the health insurance system is based will weaken. Increased fund premiums will be accepted with growing reluctance, social regimens will reduce their cover and the sick will have to pay a larger share of their costs. Some 45% of those polled said the social security system would keep its monopoly but 48% felt it would have to compete with private organizations. Third, the authorities would have a growing role in health service organization, and while out-patient general practitioner treatment would increase its share of health spending, hospital spending would fall as a proportion of total spending.