City BKK bankruptcy AOK Northeast threatens imbalance

The AOK Northeast threatens a financial distress due to the onslaught of many City BKK members

23/05/2011

The AOK Northeast threatens acute financial bottlenecks due to the high number of exchange requests of former City BKK insured. Since the announcement of the closure, especially in Berlin, many citizens require admission to the general local health insurance AOK Northeast. The onslaught could act like a negative boomerang and put the cash register in a difficult position. The Chairman of the AOK Northeast, Frank Michalak, warned against the Berliner Zeitung: „The new members confront us with additional organizational and financial burdens“. Especially elderly and chronically ill people require entry into the AOK. A further complicating factor is that the health fund only pays out insured insured contributions two months after the new members join. And this despite the fact that former City BKK insureds cause high healthcare costs right from the start.

Additional contributions threaten with financial imbalance
The situation is dramatic. If the politicians do not change the allocations, the insured persons of the AOK Nordost are also threatened with additional contributions. „This can lead to liquidity problems, which could then force the funds to make an additional contribution“, Michalak warned. For the current year, the health insurance chief, however, excluded an additional contribution. The black-yellow coalition must finally make changes to the health fund, demands the chief of sales. Because the money must also arrive at those who need it urgently. „The money from the health fund must arrive where it is needed, among the elderly and the sick“, said Michalak. The allocated funds do not cover the costs caused by this group of insureds for a long time. It was precisely this problem that fatalized the City BKK and promoted insolvency. Especially elderly and sometimes very ill people were in the City BKK health insurance. In addition, most lived in Hamburg or Berlin, where the medical costs are the highest.

Financial problems are passed on
If a health fund closes, the insured may decide for themselves which health insurance they will be insured with in the future. That is politically wanted and at first only a mere theory. Because a cash register does not close just like that, but because of serious problems. The problems are passed on to the other health insurance companies. are „problem members“ then not well distributed in the cash register system, could quickly create a domino effect. The next cashier threatens then probably the insolvency. Therefore, most health insurance companies are afraid of a flood of new applications and try with insubstantial claims to deregister new registrations downright.

Pensioners are entitled to free cash
In a recent statement, Deutsche Rentenversicherung pointed out that not only employees, but also retirees can choose a new health insurance without restrictions. If a new health insurance fund is found, the new insurance coverage starts from day one. If you have not chosen or found a new health insurance yourself, the pension insurance will register a new health insurance fund. This will happen automatically from 11th August 2011. „This will usually be the health insurance, in which the retiree was insured prior to his membership in the City BKK.“ If no cash register could be determined, the pension insurance chooses a new health insurance itself. Pensioners should, however, in the run-up to a new fund be endeavored to rule out future additional contributions.

Many are threatened with compulsory assignment
Only 40,000 of the 170,000 insured of the City BKK have only found a new health insurance after announcement of the closure. Since still massively insured ones are already abgewimmelt on the telephone, threatens many the forced instruction by the donor. If you still have not found a health insurance fund two weeks after closing, your employer will look for a new one. Experts estimate the number of those who forcibly change at around 50,000. Actually, this procedure was intended for exceptional cases, ie for people who can not look for new health insurance due to special situations. Now it turns out that at least one third of City BKK members are affected by a forced shift without free choice. (Sb)

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