The SPD occupies the Ministry of Health with its most famous expert: Karl Lauterbach. For many, his appointment is the right step – especially for professionals.
The Bundestag member Karl Lauterbach (SPD) is to become the new Federal Minister of Health. The future Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced this on Monday in Berlin. Lauterbach was confident that the corona pandemic should be pushed back. It will take longer than many thought. “But we will manage it. Vaccination will play the central role, but not only,” said Lauterbach. “We will win the fight against the pandemic and we will be better equipped for further pandemics.”
The 58-year-old health expert is to take over from the outgoing owner Jens Spahn (CDU) in the middle of the high phase of the fourth corona wave. With a view to Christmas, he announced that the immediate goal would be to bring the number of corona cases down so much that travel could soon be recommended to people again.
Karl Lauterbach, the Minister of Choice
Scholz said that most of the citizens would have wished that the next health minister would be a specialist, that he could do it really well “and that his name would be Karl Lauterbach”. It is also about the health system as a whole. The German health system is good. “How much better it would be if we had an even better health system.” The long-standing health politician and doctor Lauterbach announced that there would be no cuts in benefits.
Lauterbach’s predecessor Jens Spahn congratulated on Twitter: “Dear Karl Lauterbach, congratulations on this important and difficult, but also very beautiful task. I wish you every success and the best of luck. Because it’s about our country. Coping with this pandemic remains a joint task. “
Health policy colleagues and experts also gave a positive response to Lauterbach’s nomination. “His expertise & scientific approach will be a huge added value for the executive pandemic fight. I particularly appreciate his collegiality & his commitment to people without a large lobby in the health care sector,” wrote the Green health expert Janosch Dahmen on Twitter.
Medical associations are pleased
Andreas Gassen, chairman of the board of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians, said: “With Mr. Lauterbach, an experienced expert on the complex health system will head the ministry in the future. We offer our cooperation, suggestions and expertise.”
“The appointment of Karl Lauterbach as the new Minister of Health is the right answer to the challenges of the corona pandemic,” said the chairman of the Virchow Association of Resident Doctors, Dirk Heinrich, on Monday in Berlin.
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“Science is the natural enemy of populism, which is why we will only defeat the pandemic based on facts and with decisive action,” Heinrich emphasized. He named other important tasks for Lauterbach as the debudging of medical services, the expansion of digitization in the health care system and the reform of the fee schedule for doctors.
“I am pleased that a doctor is going to be the Minister of Health,” said the chairwoman of the Marburger Bund Doctors’ Association, Susanne Johna. Lauterbach is a “proven specialist and has not only proven since the pandemic that he has a high level of expertise,” she emphasized in the “Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung”.
Positive words also from the opposition – except for the AfD
The medical organization Hartmannbund called on Lauterbach for a constructive dialogue about the further development of the health care system. “The future health minister is an excellent expert on the field and we, as doctors, on the other hand, know very well what we have in him,” said the chairwoman of the association, Anke Lesinski-Schiedat.
There was also praise from political competition. CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak has welcomed the planned appointment of SPD politician Karl Lauterbach as Federal Minister of Health. “I think that’s a good choice,” said Ziemiak after the meetings of the CDU party committees on Monday in Berlin. As a proven health expert, Lauterbach will “not have to familiarize himself with the subject.”
“Karl Lauterbach has developed incredible trust in society from his personality, intellect and commitment,” wrote CDU politician Norbert Röttgen on Twitter.
But not everyone in the opposition is happy with the appointment. AfD parliamentary group leader Alice Weidel wrote on Twitter: “While the SPD did not trust him to have any competence in health issues in the last legislature and he therefore did not hold any functions, Karl Lauterbach is now actually going to be Minister of Health. It could not have been worse for Germany.”
Karl Lauterbach is not without controversy
However, the SPD left is still popular with many, as evidenced by its good constituency result in the federal election. He confidently won the direct mandate in Leverkusen – and thus managed to return to the Bundestag despite being at the bottom of the list.
But popularity alone does not make a minister: Precisely because of his tendency to bury himself in scientific studies, it has been speculated that Lauterbach could end up empty-handed when it comes to filling the health department. Because governing means first and foremost managing an apparatus – and in Lauterbach’s case – dealing with the pandemic.
But in the end Scholz, who is said not to have a very good relationship with Lauterbach, could not help but make the headstrong health expert minister – after all, the future head of government is accused of hesitancy in the pandemic.
The eloquent epidemiologist with the Rhenish singsong, who is also countered by the hatred of the corona deniers because of his clear announcements, now has to go to the trouble of the plain. There he will soon feel his limits. Because when it comes to fighting a pandemic, it is often others who have the say: The specific measures such as 2G rules or contact restrictions are ultimately always the responsibility of the federal states.
Doctorate at Harvard, since 2005 in the Bundestag
And when it comes to coordinating their procedures nationwide, the Chancellery is particularly in demand. So it will be one of Lauterbach’s main tasks to organize the vaccine supply – and of course his house is in demand when it comes to further changes to the Infection Protection Act.
Lauterbach’s pandemic expertise stems from his medical training: after studying medicine, he did his doctorate in epidemiology and health economics at Harvard University. In 1988 he became director of the Institute for Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology at Cologne University. In 1996 he returned to Boston as a visiting professor. In 1999 he then took on various functions in German health committees before moving into the Bundestag for the first time in 2005.