Status: 06/28/2022 3:01 p.m
Members of statutory health insurance companies will have significantly higher expenses in 2023. The additional contribution is to be increased by 0.3 percentage points. The health insurance companies warn that there is still a risk of a billion dollar financial deficit.
The additional contribution for members of statutory health insurance (GKV) will increase in the coming year – by 0.3 percentage points. This was announced by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach.
With the health insurance funds, the contribution consists of the general contribution rate of currently 14.6 percent of the gross income and an additional contribution. Each cash register can set this for itself. Both parts of the contribution are paid half by the employer and half by the employee. The additional contribution currently averages 1.3 percent.
GKV expect a financial gap of around 17 billion euros
The statutory health insurance companies (GKV) had repeatedly warned that they were threatened with a financial gap worth billions in the coming year. The CEO of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, Doris Pfeiffer, expects that health insurance companies will be short of around 17 billion euros in 2023 according to current estimates.
She also sees responsibility in politics. Basically, what is needed is more sustainable regular financing instead of “unsteady special financing,” warned Pfeiffer. This year, the statutory health insurance funds are to be subsidized by the federal government with a total of around 28.5 billion euros – also in order to be able to keep the additional contribution at the current level.
Law for faster appointment allocation – “a flop”
Like Pfeiffer, the head of Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), Jens Baas, calls the so-called Appointment Service Act a political mistake. The expenditure for this regulation of around four billion euros “could have been saved”, criticized Baas in the “Spiegel”. With the law, statutory insured persons should be able to get an appointment with the doctor more quickly. But in the end, the new appointment regulation turned out to be a “flop”, says Baas: “It should give the insured the feeling: Look, we’ve done something so that you can get an appointment faster. At the same time, it pacifies the doctors because they clearly can bill more money,” said the head of Germany’s largest health insurance company. The effect is “manageable”.
Even before the official announcement that the additional contribution would increase significantly from 2023 for the approximately 57 million people with statutory health insurance nationwide, Lauterbach had also brought other options into play to counteract the impending financial gap in the statutory health insurance system. He also considered tapping “efficiency reserves” in the healthcare system, as well as reserves from health insurance companies, and he promised additional federal grants.
GKV calls for lower VAT on medicines
But from the point of view of GKV CEO Pfeiffer, that will not be enough. In order to compensate for the minus of 17 billion euros that is expected in 2023, the additional contribution must be increased by 1.1 percentage points. In purely mathematical terms, 0.1 points in the contribution rate correspond to income of 1.6 billion euros. Last year, the statutory health insurance companies recorded a deficit of 5.8 billion euros. According to Pfeiffer, such a sum is not to be expected this year.
Among other things, she proposes a reduction in VAT on pharmaceuticals. These are vital products, said Pfeiffer. A reduction from the full 19 percent to the reduced tax rate of seven percent would bring six billion euros in relief. The association also called for the regular subsidy from the federal budget, which is “frozen” at 14.5 billion euros a year, to be increased regularly as expenditure increases. In addition, the lump sums that the state pays as cash contributions for Hartz IV recipients are far too low.