The CDU/CSU and SPD have agreed on numerous changes to the draft law on statutory health insurance (GKV) reform. The coalition presented a catalog of more than 60 amendments to the Bundestag. These include slightly lower costs for families, a smaller reduction in the federal subsidy, and changes to the manufacturer's discount for pharmaceutical companies. Representatives of the health insurance funds generally welcomed the changes. The opposition criticized them.
The coalition now intends to somewhat soften the planned burdens on insured members regarding co-payments and family insurance.
The law is scheduled to be passed in the Bundestag on Friday, with CDU's Carsten Linnemann also expecting swift passage through the Bundesrat.
The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV-Spitzenverband), representing the insurers, broadly welcomed the changes. "The amendments to the financing reform that have now become known point in the right direction," said its chairman Oliver Blatt.
He noted that the rise in co-payments would be "slightly limited," that the federal government would pay "somewhat more toward funding healthcare for basic income recipients," and that overall "every area of the healthcare system" would contribute to savings. Whether contributions would actually remain stable as a result, however, was "not yet certain," Blatt said.
He also criticized what he called a "protection program for the pharmaceutical industry," which now has less to fear in terms of rebates on drug prices.
Criticism came from the German Hospital Federation (DKG). "These amendments do not save hospital care," DKG chairman Gerald Gaß told the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung." "They do contain selective improvements, for example to the nursing budget, but they change nothing about the fundamental problem: the cold structural transformation isn't being slowed down, it's being accelerated further."
The pharmaceutical industry likewise expressed dissatisfaction. Even with the adjustments, the federal government was accepting "considerable additional damage to Germany as a pharmaceutical location," the association Pharma Deutschland stated. With the doubling of the manufacturer rebate, which would rise further still through additional measures with no time limit, "the federal government is now knowingly risking fresh damage to the location."
Green Party parliamentary manager Irene Mihalic sharply criticized the fact that the extensive package of amendments, 64 changes spanning 278 pages of text, did not reach opposition parties until late on Sunday evening. "Careful deliberation on the comprehensive amendments, with their far-reaching effects on healthcare provision, hospitals and their staff, can hardly be guaranteed under these circumstances," Mihalic told the news agency AFP. "We call on the coalition to ensure a proper, careful deliberation process in parliament."
CDU General Secretary Carsten Linnemann, for his part, expressed confidence that the law could be passed in the Bundestag on Friday and then directly in the Bundesrat as well. He saw no prospects of success for possible legal challenges over allegedly too-short deliberation periods for parliament to review the amendments. What mattered, he said, was that the reform succeed in keeping insurance contributions stable, since rising contributions were "poison" for Germany's labor market.
Even after the adjustments, insured members and employees would "continue to bear the main burden of this failed health policy," criticized Left Party health expert Tamara Mazzi. Despite cuts of 6.7 billion euros to health and long-term care insurance, she said, it remained "a mystery" how contributions were supposed to be stabilized in the long term as a result.
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