Hospital reform
Municipalities are demanding “fresh money” for clinics
According to Reinhard Sager (l.), President of the District Council, Karl Lauterbach’s plans to combat the clinic bankruptcies are not enough. photo
© Carsten Koall/dpa
More than 100 hospitals face closure if the government’s reform plans are not implemented. This is what the Minister of Health says. The municipalities see even more need for action.
With a view to the states, Lauterbach insisted that a hospital law that had already been passed in the Bundestag also received the green light in the Bundesrat. This would mobilize short-term liquidity of over six billion euros for the clinics, he said. “More than 100 hospitals are at risk of bankruptcy in 2024 without the law,” said Lauterbach, citing a study.
Lauterbach wants a decision on February 2nd
In addition to the billions in aid to finance collective wage increases, the core of the project is, above all, the creation of a “transparency directory”: Patients should receive information online about, among other things, how much experience a clinic has with certain services. The law was initially rejected by the states, so it has to be discussed in the mediation committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat. However, it is not yet on the committee’s agenda. Lauterbach had blamed the Union states for this. He again insisted that the law must be passed by February 2nd.
The Transparency Act is also intended to prepare for a major hospital financial reform. The federal and state governments have been negotiating this for months. The aim is to free hospitals from the financial pressure of having to treat more and more patients with lucrative procedures for reasons of revenue through fundamentally different payments.
Dozens of clinics in need
In principle, the association of cities and municipalities and the district council supported Lauterbach’s reform plans. However, Brandl said: “We do not see the liberation effect to the extent that the ministry estimates.”
Sager said that the current plans would not stop the impending wave of bankruptcies in the hospital sector. “At the end of the summer we had around two dozen clinics in need in Germany. The number has now increased to three dozen,” said Sager. This shows that after Corona and the increase in energy prices, the federal government needs to bring fresh money into the system.
Cash registers don’t want money out of the watering can
The board of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch, said that the transparency law is important for patients. “But if hospitals die beforehand, especially in rural areas, undersupply is inevitable here.” The federal and state governments would now have to determine which clinics should have an existence guarantee.
The health insurance companies resisted the call for fresh money. “Fresh money with a watering can does not solve any problems, but rather prevents the necessary changes,” said the spokesman for the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, Florian Lanz. “Despite the increasing shortage of nurses and doctors, we must ensure comprehensive care in rural and urban areas.”