The SPD and the Greens are considering making high earners pay more for statutory health insurance. But the headwind from the FDP and employers is great – apparently too great.
Statutory health insurance (GKV) essentially works according to the principle of solidarity: Those who earn more pay more, but do not receive better health care than someone who pays less.
But this solidarity has limits – one of them is the contribution assessment limit. It is 4987.50 euros per month. Statutory health insurance members and their employers only pay a percentage of this amount. From what someone earns beyond that, no money goes to the health insurance company.
health insurance contribution as high as the pension contribution?
SPD and Greens can imagine raising the limit; High earners and their employers would then have to pay more. SPD parliamentary group leader Dagmar Schmidt recently told the “Handelsblatt” that it was no secret that the Social Democrats were in favor of raising the assessment limit for statutory health insurance – to the level of the assessment limit for pension contributions. It is significantly higher: 7300 euros in the western German states and 7100 in the eastern German states.
There would be a significant additional burden on high earners and their employers (who pay half of the statutory health insurance contribution). The rejection by the Confederation of German Employers’ Associations (BDA) is correspondingly clear. Chief Executive Steffen Kampeter said that ARD Capital Studioan extraordinary increase in the assessment limit is “tantamount to a special tax on highly qualified work.”
BDA warns additional burden
According to the association, “in the current phase of economic uncertainty […] no additional burdens due to higher social security contributions.” The BDA assumes that the employers of high earners would have to shoulder significant additional burdens as a result of the discussed increase in the assessment limit: 2671 euros per year for each employee.
Even with the health insurance companies, who would have more money by raising the assessment limit, a higher assessment limit does not trigger a storm of jubilation. GKV press spokesman Florian Lanz argues that even with a higher contribution assessment limit, contributions would sooner or later rise again, “as long as the costs of care rise faster than the income subject to contributions”.
FDP refers to differences
The FDP argues similarly. Their health politician Christine Aschenberg-Dugnus said ARD Capital Studio: “Just pumping more money into the system won’t help.” A higher contribution assessment limit would therefore be an “additional tax on work”, and the FDP politician does not accept a comparison with the assessment limit for pension insurance: the amount of the pension is based on the amount of the payments – the benefits of the health insurance are not.
A strict no to a higher assessment limit from the FDP – which the coalition partners have apparently already heard. For the Greens, Maria Klein-Schmeink, raising the limit would strengthen the principle of solidarity, but she sees “currently little willingness on the part of our coalition partners to support such a change.”
SPD meanwhile more reserved
In addition to the FDP, she probably also means the SPD, whose parliamentary group leader Dagmar Schmidt refers to her statements from the “Handelsblatt”. ARD-does not want to repeat the request. Group groups of the Social Democrats refer to ongoing internal votes – which sounds more like that one is looking for a different solution to the expected financial gap in the statutory health insurance than a higher contribution assessment basis.