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In an interview given on Monday, Gabriel Attal, Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts, listed the various measures which would make it possible to better fight against fraud in social benefits by 2027. Among them, the idea of a merged identity card with the Vitale card would make it possible to avoid health benefit fraud.
Six to 8 billion per year, that’s what social security fraud costs in France according to the Court of Auditors. A subject that the government intends to tackle. In an interview given to Parisian Monday, Gabriel Attal, Minister Delegate in charge of Public Accounts, put forward several solutions. “It’s a ten-year project for which I’m setting a first stage: in 2027, we will have twice as many results as in 2022”he aims, promising the creation of 1,000 additional jobs by the end of the five-year term and an investment of 1 billion euros in information systems “to better cross-check the data”
Carte Vitale and identity card in the same document
In order to strengthen the conditions of residence in France “to receive social allowances” such as family allowances and the minimum old age, Gabriel Attal has thus announced that it will now be necessary to spend 9 months of the year in the country, against 6 currently planned, to benefit from family allowances or the minimum old age. To qualify for personalized housing allowances (APL), you will have to justify 8 months of presence per year.
But it is on the health side that the most notable change has been announced: according to the minister, the government is considering a merger between the Vitale card and the identity card allowing both to confirm one’s identity and to benefit from social services. “We can imagine a model where, from a certain date, when you redo your identity card, it automatically becomes your Vitale card”says the Minister.
A merger under consideration in the coming months
The announcement of this merger seems relatively new. In The world, an executive of the Ministry of the Interior questioned is moved and judges this measure “technically impossible”. “We discover the Vitale card / identity card merger measure which is clearly technically impossible to implement and for which the CNIL is deeply opposed”, did he declare.
However, at a time when the biometric Vitale card project seems to have been abandoned because of its cost, the General Inspectorate of Finance and the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs give another story in a report on the subject: “the pre-requisite conditions of such a scenario (that of a merger) listed by the CNIL seem to be able to be met, subject to an in-depth study”. The report also adds that the health professionals and health establishments interviewed are in favor of this proposal. “They see it as a source of administrative simplification and securing care.
A prefiguration mission would be launched by the summer and could reach conclusions by the end of the year.