French health spend - 'no crisis, yet'

The committee set up in France to issue warnings and impose economy measures if the country's health spending breaches pre-set limits has said there is no crisis, at least not at present. It is expected that, for the year 2006. overspending on health care will not exceed the legal limit of 0.75%, or equal to an amount of 1.0 billion euros ($1.28 billion).

However, the committee has said there is a risk and that, in order to respect the overall objective of health spending of 140.7 billion euros this year, the increase in reimbursement will have to be limited to 2.3% and not 2.5% as envisaged earlier. This would, in turn, require "quasi-stability" in the spending on general medical treatment which, despite moderate growth trends since January, appears unlikely.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Health has said it accepts the expected impact of delaying the introduction of the new drug strategy and the slowdown in the number of prescriptions being issued, and will propose new measures later this month.