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Our social welfare system is facing real issues due particularly to the great number of severe conditions and the financial crisis. The considerable deterioration in health insurance in the early 2000s, the unfavorable turn of economic climate and the rapid increase in health expenditures led the Haut Conseil pour l?avenir de l?assurance maladie (French High Council for the Future of the Health Insurance) to give an alarming review of the situation in 2003. Many positive changes have been taking place since 2004. But the sustainability of our system cannot be taken for granted. An efficient treatment policy that makes increasing use of the existing room for maneuver will make our social welfare system more sustainable in the future. We have a duty to see that our children do not inherit a health system that is in the red.