French health costs rising rapidly

Health expenditure in France during the first half of this year has grown at a rate of 4.9 —almost twice the rate voted by parliament for the year 2000.

To control the rapidly increasing costs of health care parliament had voted an annual budget of Fr658.3bn (£61.2bn; $92bn) for the year 2000, which represented an increase of 2.5% over the previous year.

The highest increase …