The health minister’s planned reforms are being rejected by panel doctors.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin The panel doctors warn of possible disadvantages for patients as a result of the cost-cutting measures by Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) for statutory health insurance. In order to stabilize the health insurance company’s billion-dollar deficit, the SPD politician plans, among other things, to abolish the new patient regulation.
As a result of the regulation, doctors have been receiving more money for the treatment of newly admitted patients for around three years. It should lead to patients without a permanent family doctor getting an appointment more quickly.
Abolishing this regulation would “not remain without massive consequences – such as longer waiting times for appointments”, warned the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) on Wednesday in a resolution together with 45 other medical associations addressed to the minister.
“We urge the Minister of Health and the legislator to drop the planned repeal of the new patient regulation in the further process,” the letter said. The plans would have “triggered a lack of understanding and deep disappointment about the unreliability of politics” among the medical profession.
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Sharp criticism also comes from the opposition. “The minister’s promise is shaky,” said the Union’s health policy spokesman, Tino Sorge (CDU), to the Handelsblatt with a view to Lauterbach’s promise that there would be no cuts in benefits despite the deficit in the billions in statutory health insurance.
Lauterbach’s refusal to cut benefits not sustainable?
“This promise was hasty,” said Sorge. Should the waiting times for appointments become longer in the future, “in the eyes of many insured persons, that would be nothing more than a reduction in benefits.” It is time to also assess the minister’s savings plans from the patient’s point of view.
However, it is not possible to say whether the new patient regulation has actually reduced waiting times, as the head of the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physician Care (Zi), Dominik Stillfried, explains. “The effect on waiting times is difficult to determine,” he told Handelsblatt. This is mainly due to the fact that the introduction of the corresponding law coincided with the beginning of the Corona crisis and “was completely overshadowed by the pandemic effect”.
Simon Reif, health economist at the economic research institute ZEW in Mannheim, considers benefit cuts to be problematic in general. “The current draft law contains spending cuts that the minister says will not result in any cuts in benefits,” Reif told the Handelsblatt.
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The fact that these cannot be ruled out due to the lack of data on new patient regulations is “a scandal”. The imbalance of the health insurance companies is mainly determined by external factors – such as the corona crisis, the economic consequences of the Ukraine war and non-insurance services. These include, for example, the burden of Hartz IV recipients whose contributions do not cover the costs. “It is therefore necessary for the state to step in,” said Reif.
With a view to the expected deficit of 17 billion euros in the coming year, the abolition of the new patient regulation only covers a small part. According to calculations by Zi, this would save 400 million euros a year.
In addition, Lauterbach plans with the new law, among other things, an additional tax subsidy of two billion euros, a loan from the state of one billion euros, a pharmaceutical tax of the same amount, increasing contributions for all insured persons and that the health insurance companies continue to reduce their reserves. The measures met with widespread criticism from insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies and the medical profession.
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