IThere is new spat in the coalition, this time it is about the financing of the statutory health insurance (GKV). It is controversial how the expected record deficit of 17 billion euros is to be closed in 2023. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) presented a financial stabilization law and assured that he had consulted closely with Finance Minister and FDP Chairman Christian Lindner.
The Liberals, however, claim not to have known the details. “There is great dissatisfaction in the FDP parliamentary group about this initiative,” said the deputy party chairman and Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki of the FAZ. Lauterbach’s approach was “not helpful for cooperation in the coalition”. For the parliamentary deliberations, Kubicki announced “that the changes will be significant and that the final resolution will have little to do with Lauterbach’s proposal”.
The health policy spokesman for the FDP parliamentary group, Andrew Ullmann, added that it is important that real structural reforms take place “and that the measures in the law are regulatory and legally clean”. This reservation is likely to be directed against a regulation according to which the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, as a public body, is to collect one billion euros each from private research-based pharmaceutical manufacturers in 2023 and 2024 in the form of a “solidarity levy”. Whether and how this skimming can take place is legally disputed.
The Greens also want to improve
The Ministry of Health rejects the allegations, pointing out that the proposals were discussed in detail within the government. The draft went to the associations and countries on Friday. “Especially in times of crisis, the social systems give the population security. That’s why everyone involved must make a contribution to stabilizing it,” said Lauterbach. The GKV remains “first class”. Despite the deficit in the billions, there are no cutbacks in the supply: “Benefit cuts are excluded.” The minister announced that he would appoint an expert commission to work out future financial reforms.
In the dispute with the FDP, the Greens are supporting the Social Democrats. “All coalition partners were involved in the cabinet in drafting the draft law,” said the parliamentary group’s health policy spokesman, Janosch Dahmen, of the FAZ recognizably did not exist.” Dahmen said that the Greens also saw a need for improvement in the law. In particular, the regulation agreed in the coalition agreement must come that the federal government pays more money to the health insurance companies for the contributions of unemployment benefit II recipients: “The bottom line is that there is a lack of 5 to 10 billion euros a year.”
There is also initial resistance from the federal states. Bavaria’s Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) criticized the special levy on the pharmaceutical industry in an interview with the FAZ: “We want to strengthen Germany as a pharmaceutical location. However, the levy is likely to deter corporations and put a heavy burden on medium-sized companies. ”The pandemic has shown the importance of domestic development and production.
