Why does the Bayrou government want to tax mutual societies? – Christophe Prudhomme's health column – January 20, 2025

While the government explains that it does not want a general tax increase, the Prime Minister announced that he would increase the tax on complementary health insurance. The explanation put forward is that they would have increased contributions too much, anticipating the reductions in reimbursement announced by the late Barnier government, and which were ultimately abandoned.

But what a lie! The increase in recent years is largely linked to the regular dereimbursement of a certain number of services, the most recent of which are the increase in co-payments on dental costs, medical transport and even certain medications. So the average increase in mutual insurance prices since 2020 is around 30%.

The scandal is that the State already levies a tax on complementary health insurance of nearly 14%, which is used to finance universal health protection (former CMU) and complementary solidarity health insurance. This tax is particularly unfair, because the rate for supplementary payments is uniform, which means that the poorest pay proportionally more than the richest and ensure most of the solidarity with those poorer than them!

“Today, it is the poor who pay and the rich who gorge themselves. »

Further increasing this tax will prevent mutual societies from being able to reduce the level of their contracts next year. This should be the rule for financing our health system: if one year expenses are higher than forecast, contributions increase the following year, but decrease if it is the opposite. This exists in France with the special regime of Alsace-Moselle, which recently increased its contribution rate from 1.5% to 1.4% of salary.

The tax deserves another approach to be accepted by citizens. It must be proportional to income. However, today, it is the poor who pay and the rich who gorge themselves. This is evidenced by the explosion in dividends from CAC 40 companies, which reached 100 billion euros. Companies which also shamefully circumvent the payment of tax in France, which means that their withholding rate is less than 5% while that of SMEs reaches 25%.

So gentlemen Macron, Bayrou and others, stop lying to the French. It is possible to balance the Social Security accounts, including the retirement branch, by taxing these dividends at 25%. This would free up 25 billion euros so that Social Security is no longer in a “deficit” and we can repeal the pension reform. The conclusion is that we must eliminate unfair taxes and tax those who accumulate wealth that we lack to ensure the financing of our health system and our public services.