Bahr criticizes raisins pecking health insurance

Health Minister Daniel Bahr criticizes raisins pecking health insurance companies

31.08.2013

According to a report by the Federal Insurance Office (BVA), chronically ill and elderly are severely penalized by some health insurance companies. In some cases, funds should have even tried to get rid of those members or even not to take up. Health Minister Bahr is outraged by this cherry picking.

Treat all insured equal
Actually, it would be prescribed by law that health insurance companies must treat all insured equal. But a report from the Federal Insurance Office (BVA) shows that some health insurance companies disadvantage the elderly and the sick. Federal Minister of Health Daniel Bahr (FDP) was alienated about the discrimination of the elderly and sick with health insurance and said: „Ablution does not work.“ That individual health insurance companies try to operate cherry picking, was not in order, said Bahr on Wednesday in Berlin. The boards of the coffers are responsible for such misconduct and liable for it.

Cash registers must abide by law
„If the legal prerequisites exist, every person must be insured in the statutory health insurance, regardless of their state of health, income, occupation, age or gender. "The health insurances would have to comply with the law, but he wanted the insurances in the pillory Bahr rated the BVA's activity report as a success, as it had been revealed that the funds would incentivize their distributors to recruit as young and healthy members as possible, and in recent years there have also been cases in which cashiers try to make phone calls The minister said that the report said that supervision was clear and that the law was clear.

Protection of the solidary community
Criticism also came from other political parties. The health spokeswoman for the Greens, Biggi Bender, said that statutory health insurance funds should not act like private health insurances. If the health insurances favored insured persons with a high income or good state of health and others were fooled, this would contradict the principle of solidarity. For the elderly and the sick, there is a claim to the protection of the community of solidarity. As the cause of this „cherry picking“ Bender named the financial equalization of the funds among themselves.

Arbitrary limit
For example, limiting the risk structure compensation to 80 diseases is arbitrary. High treatment costs at the end of life should be adequately taken into account and include prevention services in cross-border risk equalization. „It is not the job of health insurance to strive for the highest possible surplus. The internal financial equalization among the health insurance funds must be regulated so that there is no incentive for cherry picking“, so Bender.

Competitive constraint caused by black and yellow government
Equally critical was the health spokesman for the Union faction, Jens Spahn: „It is fatal if some funds are trying to get rid of the elderly or sick people, which contradicts the whole idea of ​​social security. "This was completely unacceptable and the Bundestag would need even more the directors of the coffers to take even more liability." One step further in his criticism the health expert Christoph Kranich of the consumer center Hamburg goes in an FR interview: „It is not the coffers that are responsible for the risk selection. "The black-and-yellow federal government has actually forced the coffers to enter a competition. (Ad)

Image: Thomas Siepmann