Press Statement Healthcare Reform: “Budget Consolidation at the Expense of the Insured”

“Additional burdens on workers remain, and there are sleight-of-hand tricks in the financing: This requires substantial revisions during the parliamentary process.

The entire package suffers from a glaring imbalance at the expense of the insured. This remains true despite the positive decision to refrain from cutting sick pay. Higher copayments, partial sick leave, and restrictions on free co-insurance in their current forms place an undue burden on the insured.

The recalculation of federal subsidies can only be viewed as an undignified sleight of hand. The slight increase in cost-sharing for recipients of the citizen’s income is more than offset by a simultaneous annual reduction in the federal subsidy of 2 billion euros through 2030. This amounts to budgetary consolidation at the expense of the insured and exacerbates the distribution of burdens to their detriment.

This will not make our healthcare system future-proof; instead, it will keep it in crisis mode: What is needed are genuine structural reforms—and thus a transition to universal health insurance. We need a system into which everyone contributes, and an end to two-tier healthcare.”