To limit the risk of health benefit fraud, the government is considering a merger between the Carte Vitale and the Identity Card in France.
There Vital card and the ID card could soon become one in France, announced Gabriel Attal, Minister for Action and Public Accounts, on May 29, 2023 during the presentation of his plan to fight social fraud, which represents between 6 and 8 million euros per year according to Court of Audit. This fusion of the two cards in a single secure card “as is the case in Belgium, Portugal or Sweden” (says the Minister at the Parisian) would aim to limit fraud in healthcare services, in particular fraud in the identity of beneficiaries. “We can imagine a model where, from a certain date, when you redo your identity card it automatically becomes your Carte Vitale“, explained Gabriel Attal, answering a journalist during the Q&A session after the presentation of the plan. So, real measure or “announcement effect”? According to the minister, a prefiguration mission would be launched from here in the summer of 2023 and could reach conclusions by at the end of the year.
“Health professionals and health establishments would be in favor”
According The report “Changes to the Vitale card” of the General Inspectorate of Finance and the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs, “the health professionals and health establishments questioned would be in favor of this proposal, seeing it as a “source of administrative simplification and safety of care“. Nevertheless, this measure would not have been the subject of consultation within the government and would for the time being “technically impossible” to be implemented, declared an executive of the Minister of the Interior, whose remarks were relayed by our colleagues from BFM TV. Especially since the CNIL (Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés) responsible for preserving individual freedoms in digital technology and controlling the use of personal data would be “deeply opposed” to this merger of the two cards. Moreover, the track of a Biometric vital card (like passports) which had nevertheless been advanced a few months ago would have been abandoned in particular because of its too high cost (250 million euros per year).
- Report The fight against social benefits fraud – Communication to the Senate Social Affairs Committee
- Report The evolutions of the vital card – National Assembly