Income no longer suffices to cover the expenses of the CNS. According to their president Christian Oberlé, costs have now been increasing faster than income from membership fees for the past six years.
Read also: CNS deficit for 2022 estimated to be €55.1 million
The National Health Fund has planned a budget of €4.2 billion for next year, a decrease of €10 million from that of last year. This means that CNS officials will once again have to draw funds from their reserves, which are far from infinite.
In fact, it is regulated by law that they are not allowed to fall below a certain level. “If nothing changes, this structural problem will likely get worse,” says Oberlé, who further warns that “the tipping point could be reached in 2028", at least according to the latest growth forecasts by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (STATEC).
A task force responsible for finding rapid and effective solutions has already begun working on the issue. All possible solutions will be put on the table for analysis. Officials will thus examine whether an increase of contributions or savings in the costs of care represent a feasible path forward.
The 2023 budget reserves €26.7 million for psychotherapy, a service that should be reimbursed as of April next year. However, negotiations with Fapsylux, the Luxembourg Federation of Psychotherapists, are still ongoing. “We have to find an agreement”, the CNS president underlined, “even if these negotiations fail, we will still proceed with the reimbursement, the rates of which will be fixed by an external entity.”
955,300 people will benefit from health coverage in Luxembourg in 2023. Two thirds of them live in the Grand Duchy, the rest abroad.
