Faced with the increase in the cost of sick leave, the National Health Insurance Fund recommends reviewing the “system” – Libération

With an announced deficit higher than the 11.4 billion euros forecast and before the budget vote, the Cnam is showing its combativeness. Between now and December, the Fund will notably contact 30,000 to 40,000 employees who have been off work for more than eighteen months to check whether their absence is still justified.

The National Health Insurance Fund is getting ahead of the call. A few weeks before the opening of parliamentary debates on the financing of Social Security for 2025, its general director, Thomas Fatôme, is bringing up the issue of the cost of work stoppages, which are too high. “dynamic” in his eyes. On Monday, during a press briefing at the Cnam headquarters, he spontaneously “made available to the government and parliamentarians to discuss this issue”believing that the current system is “questionable in terms of financial sustainability and fairness”.

A way to direct the predictable aim of Bercy and parliamentarians. For good reason, the deficit of the health branch of the Social Security should at the end of the year be even higher than the 11.4 billion announced in June. While Bercy is actively looking for nearly fifteen billion in savings, health insurance is clearly in the crosshairs.

“Exchanges, not controls”

But for the Cnam, the cost of work stoppages looks like a bottomless pit. In 2023, daily allowances (IJ) paid to policyholders (excluding Covid) reached 15.8 billion euros, half as much as in 2015. A boom that the Cnam is struggling to contain. And it’s not for lack of doing its part. In 2023, the prescription verification campaign