How health insurance is changing in France

Patrick Négaret argues that one can take charge of one’s health by changing one’s diet and lifestyle, thereby reducing the need for medical care. The state of health of the population would then improve and the related expenses would decrease. In the long term, the aim is to concentrate more on health than illness. This is the basis of Négaret’s project, Santé Active, which he first tried out in the Sarthe département using a variety of methods including forums, workshops, information booths in town centres, group and individual coaching sessions, belonging to a club in order to monitor healthcare, deploying teams to encourage doctors to reduce the number of medical prescriptions, and so on. The scheme proved to be effective, and today Patrick Négaret is in charge of implementing it on a national level. At a time when the French health insurance accounts are strongly depleted, this approach offers an alternative to increases in social security contributions and should improve both the standard of public health and put the social security accounts in order.