Additional contributions 2012 with almost all health insurance companies?

Health insurance: additional contributions from 2012 „on a broad front“.

(14.09.2010) The costs in the health system continue to explode and reach a level that, according to AOK boss Herbert Reichelt already from 2012, the collection of additional contributions on a "broad front" required. According to the expert, not least the steadily rising treatment costs are responsible for the imminent deficit. Whereby a recent survey of the scientific institute of the AOK (WIdO) has shown that about 8 percent of the legally insured anyway have the impression that they are extensively examined and treated at doctor visits.

In the coming year, almost all statutory health insurance funds will be able to make do without additional contributions due to the planned increase in the contribution rate from 14.9 to 15.5 percent and the additional cost-cutting measures. From 2012, however, the experts believe that most statutory health insurance companies will have to introduce additional contributions. The massively rising costs are otherwise difficult to absorb, and the current study of the WIdO suggests also at the level of treatment and investigation with austerity measures.

In the opinion of the experts, the patient receipt offers a good approach in order to achieve better cost control for treatments and examinations on the part of the insured. The health expert of the Association of Consumer Organizations, Stefan Etgeton, demanded in an interview with the „Rheinische Post“, that the patient receipt is more advertised because „we need more transparency in the system. "However, this should not be an expression of the general distrust of doctors, but merely to ensure more agreement between the diseases of the patients and the medical diagnoses and the subsequent treatment.On the patient receipt is the diagnosis of the doctor and Patients who feel they have been treated or examined unnecessarily, can refer to the independent patient consultants, their own health insurances or to the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians with the patient receipt. whether the diagnosis and treatment were appropriate for the insured person's symptoms or illnesses, but the WIdO survey also found that around 80% of those insured were generally satisfied with their medical treatment.

By contrast, with the current structure of the health care system, only 30 percent of respondents were satisfied and almost two-thirds of two-thirds assume that their health insurance benefits will decline in the future. For example, the representatives of the statutory health insurance funds are calling for a structural reform of the entire system. The imminent deficit for 2012 requires action by politicians, emphasizes the AOK national chairman Reichelt and expects that the health insurance will get more negotiating freedom in the conclusion of low-cost contracts with doctors, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies. Legal insurance is facing increasing competitive pressure, with the levying of additional contributions a clear disadvantage. Almost all statutory insurance companies are trying to avoid such contributions so far, otherwise they risk massive losses of members.

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For many statutory health insurance, the introduction of additional contributions sets a vicious circle of additional contributions, loss of members, growing deficits and renewed additional contributions, which they find it difficult to break. Only if additional contributions to the plans of the black-yellow federal government are an integral part of the system and any insurance is levied, the described development could be avoided. Until then, however, statutory insurance companies will do everything they can to avoid falling into the vicious circle of additional contributions. Thus, it is an essential goal of the current mergers among the statutory health insurance companies to avoid the collection of additional contributions by cost reductions. According to the experts, such as AOK Vice President Jürgen Graalmann, only about 50 funds will still be available in four to five years from the currently 163 statutory health insurance funds.

Although many statutory health insurance companies (GKV) have already reached the limit of their financial capacity, Federal Health Minister Philipp Rösler (FDP) is planning various measures to further increase competitive pressure from private health insurance companies (PKV). So z. B. additional tariffs deleted, the previously reserved the statutory health insurance Pharmarabatte on PKV´s and facilitating the switch between private health insurance and SHI. Thus, the Federal Government takes more and more distance from the previously valid principle of solidarity, which is assessed positively in the current WIdO survey of 71 percent of the insured. The situation in the health care system is getting more and more acute, as opposing interests are often pursued. A clear commitment to statutory insurance and a new regulation of the cost structure would be urgently required. (Fp)