[Public health law and health policy]

The law of August 9, 2004, marked a new era with a step in a new direction for defining a process to develop health policy in France. The five-year law provided a framework to formalize public health objectives, but it remains primarily a programming law without means to support implementation. Amidst other issues, the legislative surge experienced by the health sector over recent years largely diluted the effects. It is essential to surpass the outline of a defined framework to lead to a policy that covers the totality of the field of public health action and to a unifying approach that brings together public health and health insurance policies. Health policy could be articulated around four ambitions: improvement of health outcomes, reduction of inequalities, efficiency of the health system, and the advancement of health democracy.