Administrative board of AOK Baden-Württemberg criticizes financing law / Stability of statutory health insurance at risk

Karlsruhe – The Board of Directors of the AOK Baden-Württemberg has spoken out clearly against the planned GKV Financial Stabilization Act from the Federal Ministry of Health. Federal Minister Karl Lauterbach’s (SPD) plans would massively jeopardize the stability of statutory health insurance and place a heavy one-sided burden on contributors. In addition, the committee complained at today’s meeting in Karlsruhe that there are no long-term prospects for sustainable and socially just financing.

“The draft presented is aimed in the completely wrong direction and provides for a disproportionate burden on insured persons and their employers. While contributors are expected to bear the brunt of the legislative package’s financial burden, much-needed structural reforms are completely left out. This jeopardizes the long-term financial stability of the statutory health insurance system,” criticizes Peer-Michael Dick, alternate chairman of the board of directors on the employers’ side. The law aims to close the funding gap in statutory health insurance, which is estimated at around 17 billion euros in the coming year. Among other things, it is planned to increase the additional contribution, reduce reserves from the health fund and the health insurance companies to the absolute minimum and to provide the GKV with a loan from the federal government.

“The measures outlined by the minister are a drop in the ocean and do not help to ensure solid and sustainable funding. Due to the expensive and failed legislation of the last legislature, the funds are facing enormous challenges that neither they nor the contributors have brought about. In the shadow of rising inflation, higher gas and electricity prices and more expensive food prices, shifting the financial burden mainly onto the insured and employers is simply cynical and socially unfair,” adds Monika Lersmacher, alternate chairwoman of the board of directors on the side of the insured. The urgent structural problems would not be addressed in any way with the planned short-term cash injection and further increases in contributions and thus burdens would be necessary in the following years.

The Board of Directors of the AOK Baden-Württemberg is particularly critical of the reduction in the financial reserves of the health insurance companies, which are already heavily burdened, and the withdrawal of funds from the liquidity reserve of the health fund. “With the intervention in the financial reserves of the health insurance companies, the financial autonomy of social self-government is massively disregarded and eroded in a completely wrong way,” emphasizes Dick. “This means that the health insurance funds are being deprived of the flexibility to make sustainable investments in high-quality care. Even a forward-looking and solid budget management is not possible for the statutory health insurance companies under these circumstances. The AOK Baden-Württemberg expects a financial burden in the middle three-digit million range. Added to this is the burden on contributors due to the planned increase in the additional contribution rate by 0.3 percent.

“The solidarity system of the GKV is in massive danger as a result of this draft law,” warns Lersmacher, “the reduction in the financial reserves has enormous negative consequences for the financial stability of the health insurance funds and the federal loan is also pushing the GKV into debt. That cannot be in the interests of society, the economy and politics. The social partnership, which has been tried and tested for decades, faces an uncertain future.”

Instead of asking the GKV members and their employers to pay for the spending-intensive legislation of the past few years, the Board of Directors of the AOK Baden-Württemberg renewed its call for sustainable structural reforms. Proposals were included by the traffic light parties themselves in the coalition agreement: an increase in the contribution payments from the Federal Agency for insured persons who receive ALG-II and a regular dynamization of the federal subsidy for services provided by health insurance companies for the general public. At the same time, the committee is calling for the VAT on pharmaceuticals to be reduced to 7 percent. These measures would have long-term, stabilizing effects on the financial situation of the GKV and would ensure social peace in Germany, which depends to a large extent on a functioning health system and thus also on the performance of the statutory health insurance companies.

The AOK Baden-Württemberg insures over 4.5 million people in the state and has a budget of over 20 billion euros.

Information on the AOK Baden-Württemberg at www.aok.de/bw

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