French Fifth Risk Plan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The French Fifth Risk Plan aimed at curbing the risk of dependency for the elderly. The dependency risk is called in France the "fifth risk" because the Social Security is divided into four branches, each covering one so-called "risk": illness, old age, family and employment.
In France, the issue of support for elderly dependency is more and more acute: it is estimated today that four people from the baby boom generations will suffer from it.
In 2008, the INSEE identified 1 314 920 persons aged over 85 years in France. In 2015, the figure is expected to reach than 2 million. The number of people with high handicap could rise from 660 000 in 2005 to 940 000 in 2025. Meanwhile, because of population aging, the average number of potential caregivers by dependent elderly person will tend to decrease.
As the four branches of the Social Security (sickness, diseases at work, family, old age) will not be able to cope with this demographic challenge, the Government plans to take care of dependency by the creation of a fifth risk, combining public funding for the solidarity and the establishment of an insurance system encouraged by tax incentives.
Existing laws
The law of 24 January 1997, defines dependency as "a state in which the person who, notwithstanding the care that is likely to receive, needs support for the performance of actions essential to life or requires regular supervision".
In 2008, public spending related to the care of dependent elderly people (health care benefits and benefits of compensation for loss of autonomy) was around 19 billion euros per year, or 1% of GDP.
The law of 30 June 1975 established the third person compensatory allowance (Allocation compensatrice tierce personne or ACTP) for people with disabilities. It was funded by taxes, and was extended in 1983 to the elderly. It was replaced by the specific dependency allowance (Prestation spécifique dépendance) with the law of 24 January 1997, and was finally suppressed with the implementation of the individual allowance for autonomy (Allocation personnalisée à l’autonomie or APA) on 1 January 2002.