Billions in health insurance expected

Despite additional contributions and massive savings efforts, a billion deficit in the statutory health insurance is expected.

(16.09.2010) Despite health funds, additional contributions and massive savings efforts, the deficit in statutory health insurance is expected to rise to more than € 3 billion this year. According to the Federal Ministry of Health, the primary source of debt is the rising expenditure on doctors' fees, hospital treatment and medicines.

While the statutory health insurance funds at the cut-off date 1 September 2010 with about 1.2 million still have a relatively large financial reserves, the now published financial reserves of 112 million in the opinion of the Federal Ministry of Health for the rest of the year 2010 not rudimentary to the costs to bear the insurance. Because in the first half of the year, expenditures are generally lower than in the second and the average most expensive months of November and December are still ahead of the coffers. Their financial reserves are shrinking rapidly, and they are already puzzling over how to deal with the huge expected deficit of about 3.1 billion.

With 87.37 billion euros, the statutory health insurance companies in the first half of 2010, about 2.2 percent more than the year before, with a tax subsidy of 3.9 billion euros was already included. Over the same period, their spending increased by 4.2 per cent to € 87.25 billion, so that they still managed a slight plus in the first half of the year, but the emerging deficit is already apparent today. The additional contributions played only a minor role in the previous financial statement of the funds with only 272 million euros.

While the surplus of 1.2 billion last year for the then Minister of Health Ulla Schmidt still gave cause for praise for the health fund, currently all responsible politicians and the representatives of the statutory health insurance companies are relatively at a loss. It is clear that a significant deficit in the end of the year, and that this is mainly due to the increased costs of service expenditures. On average, they rose by 4.2 percent, with doctors' fees (+ 5.4 percent per insured person), medicines (+ 4.8 percent) and hospitals (+ 4.2 percent) being among the biggest cost factors. The still enormous growth rates are based on already relatively high expenditures in 2009, so that an increase of almost 5 percent is rated particularly critically by the BMG. The BMG has also recorded a massive increase in costs (+ 10 percent) in the area of ​​sickness benefits, which is mainly attributed to a growing number of persons entitled to sickness benefits as the retirement age increases and a marked increase in lengthy mental illnesses.

Why the costs of medical treatment, hospitals and medicines explode in such a way, the Federal Ministry of Health with the increased fee claims of doctors, higher collective agreements for hospitals and the lack of competition in the pharmaceutical market. In particular, the still very high drug prices in Germany in the view of the black and yellow federal government require political intervention, because „the high increase in spending in recent years has continued (...) almost unabated in the drugs, "said a spokesman for the Ministry of Health „The result of a lack of price competition for patent-protected medicines with often only a small additional therapeutic benefit "continued the statement from the ministry, saying that the current publication of the financial results fits in well with the forthcoming decisions on the Law for the Reorganization of the Pharmaceuticals Market (AMNOG) „According to the Federal Minister of Health, Philipp Rösler, a stronger price regulation and the use of additional benefits to justify high prices must be clearly clarified come into force this year and save the health insurances about one billion euros a year.

And also the health insurance funds are to make their contribution in view of the impending deficit. For example, the Federal Minister of Health has called on her to further reduce the costs of her administration, because these too have increased by about 4.5 percent in the past year. Taking into account the reimbursement of administrative costs by other agencies, net administrative costs have even gone up by almost eight per cent. „Against this background, the limitation of the administrative costs of the health insurances in the years 2011 and 2012 to the level of the year 2010 appears an indispensable contribution of the health insurance funds to the necessary limitation of expenditure in the SHI,“ explained the Federal Ministry of Health. However, the statutory health insurance funds have to cover most of the deficit anyway from their own reserves, since an economic special subsidy from the federal government, as in 2009, is not to be expected. (Fp)

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