Would it be legal to charge an unvaccinated person for hospitalization?

If peaks of vaccination against Covid-19 have been observed in May and July, since the number of bites carried out has stagnated. According to Public Health France, as of December 28, 21.3% of the population has not been vaccinated at all. To encourage those who have still not received the slightest injection, the government wants to transform the health pass into a vaccination pass. This therefore means that access to many places would now be restricted to fully vaccinated people.

For some, this measure is insufficient in the face of the resumption of the epidemic, and the number of Covid-19 patients who are hospitalized and not vaccinated. As of December 20, and for the first time since May, critical care services are welcoming more than 3,000 patients with the coronavirus. “Let us charge the entry into intensive care for the unvaccinated”, proposed the lawyer Charles Consigny in the program The Big Mouths, aired on RMC Story on Monday, December 20. A year ago already, Guillaume Lacroix, president of the Radical Left Party made this recommendation: “Society should bear the cost of vaccines, not the expenses of those who refuse to protect themselves and others. “

If this measure has been implemented in Singapore since December 8, in France would this be possible from a legal point of view? The lawyer specializing in public law Fleur Jourdan provides her response in an interview with 20 Minutes.

What do the laws define in terms of access to healthcare in France?

Paragraph 11 of the preamble to the Constitution of October 27, 1946 specifies that the State “guarantees to all, in particular to the child, to the mother and to the old workers, the protection of health”. There is therefore a constitutional principle which is that of the right to health which is reflected in the social security system.

Then, there is the law “Universal health protection” of 2016 which “now guarantees everyone who works or resides in France a right to cover health costs, without any specific steps to be taken”. It also specifies that the reimbursement is not linked either to the condition or to the situation of a person. Just because you don’t contribute to Social Security doesn’t mean you have to pay. Everyone is covered the same.

What then of PCR and antigenic tests, which are not all created equal?

Indeed, PCR and antigenic tests are paying for people who are not vaccinated against Covid-19, but free for those who are. And it is true that the law states that two people in the same situation must not be treated differently. But do we consider that the vaccinated and the unvaccinated are in the same situation? Anyway, between testing and hospitalization there is a difference. In the second point, it is about access to care.

So to date, would it be possible to pay for hospitalization only for people not vaccinated against Covid-19?

To be able to make this legal, it is clear that the 2016 law would have to be amended. Then there would still be the question of the Constitution. Today, all the texts which make the law of our State, all the laws go in the opposite direction of this idea of ​​invoicing of the hospitalization to certain people and not to others. And if we came to that, many questions would arise about the current functioning of our health system. For example, we do not disburse the care of smokers because they have not quit smoking.