Health Minister Karl Lauterbach is under pressure because the health insurance companies urgently need money.
(Photo: AP)
Berlin The healthcare industry is notoriously divided. Opposing interests regularly cause doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies to clash. Minister Karl Lauterbach has managed to unite the industry – in spite of unprecedented anger about his planned financial reform of statutory health insurance (GKV). Even politicians from Lauterbach’s traffic light coalition see little good in the plans. The Ministry of Finance also has objections.
The SPD politician has turned almost everyone against him: social organizations and employers consider it irresponsible that contributions should increase at a time when insured persons are already having to contend with sharply rising prices.
The health insurance companies should melt their already scarce reserves – and are now warning that insurance companies will go bankrupt. And pharmaceutical companies are supposed to pay billions in solos, and they are also threatened with cuts in drug prices – they see Germany as a business location in danger.
The healthcare industry lobby has always been strong when something has been taken from them. But in view of the dramatic deficit of 17 billion euros in the coming year, cuts are actually needed. We can’t go on with the coffers swinging from deficit to deficit without a long-term solution.
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>> Read more: AOK boss warns of contribution shock: “Lauterbach must understand: the coffers are empty”
The healthcare system is one of the most expensive in the world, but only average. In this situation, the minister has to make uncomfortable decisions.
Bad governance
But the indignation is also evidence of bad government action. On the one hand, this is because the measures do not solve the financial problem, only postpone it.
In the coming year, the misery could be even greater, because a possible recession will cause income to collapse and Lauterbach will initiate reforms whose financing is still unclear – for example in the hospital sector. The fact that the minister at least does not want to cut any dispensable services such as homeopathy is a shackle that he should say goodbye to.
Another example is that the traffic light does not – as promised in the coalition agreement – take on the burden of Hartz IV recipients, which cost the health insurers around ten billion euros. Anger at the broken promise runs deep. And the fact that it is completely unclear how the pharmaceutical solos are supposed to work practically and legally means that the worst can be expected. Lauterbach needs allies for real financial reform. But they are missing farther afield.
More: Because of Lauterbach’s demand for billions: pharmaceutical companies are threatening job cuts