Sawicki Come billions in costs for the insured?

Sawicki: Come billions in costs for the insured ?

The background is that the head of the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), Peter Sawicki according to preliminary media reports probably now but no extension for his employment contract. In the past, under the direction of Sawicki, the institute has excluded some medicines and medical services indirectly from the catalog of benefits of the health insurance companies by negative assessments of effectiveness and price. This meant a loss of some millions of euros for the pharmaceutical or medical companies involved.

In an interview with the newspaper „the daily newspaper“ (taz) On 19 January 2010, Sawicki stated that, for example, at a court hearing last week, a judge said that the IQWiG price reduction in the case of a single drug alone cost the company 25 million euros. These were savings for the health insurance companies and their insured.

The media reported until a few days ago that the coalition agreement between the Union and the FDP had already stipulated that the institute should undergo a reorientation. The work of the institute should focus more on the business location Germany, was to be read. In the future, that would mean that the science suffers. Under Sawitzki's leadership, the institute has for years gained an internationally recognized reputation for its neutral expertise, backed by high scientific standards. This independent institution was introduced by the Red-Green Federal Government in order to check independently for quality and profitability.

The interference of politics in the work on the IQWiG would, one believes the media reports, destroy the independence and thus damage the international reputation. The concept of „industry friendliness“, which is said to be behind the interference of politics, according to the big German gazettes, translated means that more money for more ineffective expensive medical services and medicines would be spent in favor of a company. What the health insurance companies (billions in costs for the health insurance companies) and their insured would pay.

Link with health policy
So far, the new Federal Minister of Health, the Hanoverian Phillip Rösler of the FDP, has attracted attention only by an increase in costs to the detriment of the insured and in favor of individual interest groups and industry.

The health policy of an elected government must be measured by an improvement in the care and quality of medical services (Hartz IV health system) and a reduction in the cost to the public.

This also means that medical research institutions such as the IQWiG can work independently and seriously according to scientific and non-clientelated criteria. Not only in the medical field, this is the really scary thing about the new developments under the black and yellow federal government: We are moving away from a substantive work, towards a focus on pure individual interests.

Peter Sawicki is not because of „his lax and autocratic handling of company cars and expenses“ must go in August, as the Handelsblatt logically writes. It will probably start in August because of an evidence-based approach „normal“ Working in the field of science need to look for a new job. (Thorsten Fischer, Naturopath Osteopathy, 21.1.2010)

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Interview in the taz from the 19th Janaur 2010 with Peter Sawicki