Additional contributions health insurance also with ALG II

Additional contributions to health insurance also for ALG II recipients

In connection with the additional contributions, which some health insurance companies want to claim already from the next month, now another - barely comprehensible - detail has become public: recipients of unemployment benefit II (ALG II) and social benefits are already required from next month by some health insurance companies Additional contributions (8 euros per month more) pay from your own pocket. Although the health insurance contributions have been taken over by the needy so far by the Federal Employment Agency, is the expected additional costs another system, because these fall according to SGB II (Social Code) is not the responsibility of the service provider. The basis of this regulation forms the view of the legislator that it is basically to Hartz IV recipients to switch to a health insurance, which (still) does not raise additional contributions and would therefore be more favorable. However, this idea seems to make little sense, since according to the health insurance association is expected that in the course of the year almost all funds would gradually adapt to the new scheme - money is urgently needed to a threatening billion-dollar financial deficit to compensate the health insurance companies.

The independent assumption of additional costs applies in principle for all beneficiaries - exceptions there are only a few, for example, for those who are bound because of a special form of treatment to their coffers. However, since this is probably only the case for a small number of people affected, the bottom line is that most of the recipients are asked to pay - and that loudly „World Online“ in advance, under threat of sanctions, as Helmut Wasserfuhr, chairman of the Joint Health Insurance Fund (GBK) in Cologne, has already announced that he will remunerate defaulting payers in an emergency.

Contrary to the rigid plans of the coffers SPD and social organizations demand that ALG II recipients of the contributions to free - after Elke Ferner, deputy SPD parliamentary group leader in the Bundestag, it was loud „World online“ but anyway questionable whether the proposed scheme for unemployed could exist in court, since the additional costs in the current basic security were not even included. And even a rapid change to another fund would not be acceptable to politicians, because after all, it could be assumed that would be due within a short time in this additional contributions - the only possibility for Hartz IV recipients is therefore either to raise the standard rate or abolish the additional contributions. The abolition of the additional contributions for ALG II recipients by the Federal Government had previously failed „World online“ even Adolf Bauer, the president of the social association Germany, in the „Berlin newspaper“ and Werner Hesse, Managing Director of the Joint Welfare Association, demanded a general legal claim in the newspaper.

Despite the loud criticism of the additional contributions, according to data from „World online“, the following health insurances promptly introduce additional contributions, which then - should the federal government not respond - also apply to ALG II recipients:

Probable additional contributions of the health insurance companies
- DAK (presumably from 1st February flat rate 8 Euro monthly extra)
- KKH Allianz (presumably in the first half of 2010 a flat rate of 8 euros per month extra)
- BKK Health (presumably from 1st February or 1st March flat rate 8 Euro monthly extra)
- German BKK (date and amount of additional costs not yet clear)
- Novitas BKK (date and amount of additional costs not yet clear)
- BKK für Heilberufe (date and amount of additional costs not yet clear)
- ktp BKK (probably from April 1 flat rate 8 euros extra monthly)
- BKK Westfalen-Lippe (probably more than 8 euros per month from 1 February)
(sb, 27.01.2010)

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