Health insurance companies demand outstanding additional contributions

Health insurance companies request outstanding additional contributions and threaten payment deniers with salary garnishment

08/03/2011

Supplementary contributions are currently collected by around one in ten statutory health insurance companies, but hundreds of thousands of members have simply refused to pay. This should now be the end of the health insurance funds. In the worst case, the defaulting payers are facing the seizure of salaries.

Due to the high administrative costs, the health insurance funds have so far waived the enforcement of the additional contributions. Those who did not pay the extra fee were better off than the honest insured because no sanctions threatened. This is now over. The first statutory health insurance companies, such as Deutsche Angestellten Krankenkasse (DAK), passed on the data of defaulting customers to the main customs offices. The customs offices are now to collect the debts owed for months and, if necessary, seize salaries or pensions of the debtors

Hundreds of thousands of legally insured persons refuse additional contribution
Hundreds of thousands of insured people have refused to pay additional contributions. According to DAK alone, 220,000 members are in arrears with the payment. This means that around five percent of the 4.5 million DAK customers have so far not paid the additional fee of € 8 per month since January 2010, despite repeated requests. Therefore, the DAK has decided to pass on the data of the defaulting policyholders to the main customs offices, so that they collect the outstanding contributions. The Social Security Code (SGB) also regulates the seizure of salary or pension as a final consequence of refusal to pay. A speaker of the DAK emphasized that the health insurance company had not made the step easy, because „nobody likes to turn on the main customs office.“ But given the high number of refusal of contributions, the DAK remained hardly another option. Now the persons concerned are again written to before a salary garnishment and asked to pay the outstanding amounts. If the defaulting customers still do not pay then stand as the last step, the garnishment of the salary or the pension before, warned the DAK spokesman.

Additional contributions due to the deficit of health insurance required
In general, the DAK continued to support the additional contributions, however, the system must first import, said the DAK spokesman „Mirror online“. After all, 95 percent of customers have already paid this time. In view of the deficits of the past few years, the DAK can not do without the levying of additional contributions, as these are one of the few options for statutory health insurance companies to generate additional income. In the past year, however, the DAK was in spite of the additional contributions of eight euros - due to subsequent corrections to the disease-oriented financial equalization - slipped into the min. Before the corrections of the fiscal equalization was at the DAK for the year 2010, a surplus of 62 million was recorded, but turned in hindsight in a deficit of 79 million euros, reports the spokesman for the DAK. The figures illustrate how urgently the DAK relies on the additional contributions levied. Over 220,000 members refuse payment is unacceptable and unacceptable in the long run, because otherwise the honest contributors in the end would be the stupid. They pay their additional contribution, but because others do not, the deficit can not be compensated and in the next year are even higher additional contributions. The legal insurances, such as the DAK or the City BKK now want to put a stop to this development with the help of the Hauptzollamt.

Refusal to pay additional contributions unacceptable
It should be noted that even with a general rejection of the additional contribution model, a refusal to pay is non-solidarity with the other members of the corresponding insurance. For those who do not want to pay any additional contributions, the health insurance can change at any time, subject to the notice periods. There are a variety of statutory health insurance available, which so far raise no additional contributions. However, simply not paying the required additional contributions is not a viable option, even if the health insurance companies have done little to date. With the involvement of the main customs offices and the threatened salary garnishment should now be aware of the previous payment deniers that in the future, the additional contributions are to be paid in any case. The only way to get around this is a change of insurance.

Supplementary contributions in the future an integral part of the system
So far, about ten percent of the approximately 150 existing statutory health insurance companies are making an additional contribution so that insured persons can easily switch to an insurance without an additional contribution. However, in the future significantly more health insurance funds may be dependent on the collection of an additional contribution. Because like that „Handelsblatt“ At the end of last week, many statutory health insurance companies suffered a significant deficit last year. The AOK alone had a minus of more than half a billion euros in 2010. The Barmer GEK also had a financial deficit of nearly 300 million, the report said „Handelsblatt“. The fact that even the large German health insurance companies have a massive deficit and even their initial speculations about additional contributions are loud, according to experts is a clear sign that additional contributions in the long term likely to be standard in the statutory health insurance system. (Fp)

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Threaten AOK insured additional contributions?

Picture: Chris Beck