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The headlines in the press are chilling: “The Court of Auditors proposes to stop compensating work stoppages of less than eight days.” What is it really? Why such a turn of the screw? Is economic logic compatible with public health?
And Social Security only paid compensation from the 8th day?
Current regulations provide that work stoppages are covered, with salary maintained, by companies under conditions established by collective agreements and regulated by law. Social security partially compensates them from the fourth day of stoppage.
Faced with the increase in the cost for Social Security (€12 billion in 2022, +56% since 2017), the Court of Auditors plays the Fouettard fathers by recommending: “In order to reduce health insurance expenses, modify the parameters of compensation for work stoppages, in particular with a view to better sharing the burden between social security, businesses and policyholders, following a consultation with social partners“.
She wanted to clarify her thoughts after the articles published on the subject, in a press release sent today: “The Court of Auditors does not favor any particular measure, but calculates the savings that different measures would bring. The often cited option of stopping compensation for work stoppages of less than eight days would amount, in most cases, to companies covering work stoppages, with maintenance of salary, until to seven days, instead of three days currently. Long-term conditions would not be affected“. Not really a denial…
To combat abuse, should we make sick employees feel guilty?
The Court of Auditors also recommends a simplification of regulations and a more resolute fight against fraud and requirements of convenience. After Bruno Lemaire spoke about “people” who take advantage of the system”even though they are not sick” and that Gabriel Attal, then Minister of Public Accounts, declared that “it is very easy to obtain sick leave“, the hunt for work stoppages continues.
“The majority of work stoppages are not abusive. There is general discomfort and going to see your doctor for treatment is often the last line of defense. Talking about control and abuse also casts opprobrium on the general practitioner, when, conversely, we should give them back power.“, told us Dr Gérald Kierzek, medical director of Doctissimo.
After the offensive against sick leave decided by teleconsultation, the strengthening of controls by medical inspectors delegated by the employer, the new proposal is to go from 4 to 8 days of waiting before being covered by Health Insurance. It is up to companies to compensate or not for these days of absence or to employees to refrain from being sick…
This same Court of Auditors had suggested that employees could declare their sick leave of up to 3 days themselves without going through the doctor’s box but with “another regulation system, for example one or two waiting days” which would not be compensated either by Health Insurance or by the employer.
Can we play scores with public health?
The approach appears more and more economical and devoid of any real public health problem. We encourage sick employees not to go to the doctor for short-term sick leave (for which they must therefore self-diagnose) and on the other hand, we are moving towards a system which will compensate sick employees less well in the event of stop.
All the conditions will of course deter abuse but also the desire for sick employees to take time off for benign illnesses, even if it means passing them on to their “kind colleagues” or delaying treatment at early stages for illnesses. significant physical or psychological problems, as long as their impact is not sufficiently disabling… thus delaying treatment, a sometimes essential criterion.
“Once again, we risk penalizing the most vulnerable with a purely budgetary measure. Sick leave is a medical measure. There are certainly abuses, but we should rather give back a certain power to doctors, such as that of refusing sick leave at the request of patients, or look at teleconsultation platforms, some of which have become distributors of sick leave, rather what to defund at all” adds Dr. Gérald Kierzek, emergency physician and medical director of Doctissimo.