How radical will Rösler be?
publication date: Nov 10, 2009
Is the surprise appointment of young Free Democrat Philipp Rösler as the new German health minister likely to lead to radical reforms? "I have a clear goal - to launch a health-care system that functions well for 80 million people," Roesler told the mass-circulation newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "We need more freedom. Freedom in the choice of therapy, freedom in the choice of doctors and health insurance providers," Roesler said. He also said that public health funds should be made to compete with one another, that they should be free to set different premiums and offer different levels of service.
Germany faces a large healthcare deficit with the general fund set up by the previous government showing a deficit of over EUR7bn as unemployment rises.
On the whole, radical change looks unlikely. An investment bank analyst who follows the sector says: "In a way it is quite difficult for the Free Democrats. Many of their supporters are young professionals - medics and lawyers - and yet any serious reform would upset much of the medical profession. I think they face a real conflict between their policies and their supporters."
There is also a real conflict between the Christian Democrats and the Free Democrats on healthcare with the following adopting a much more staid and centrist approach which has, for instance, seen statutory insurers lose much of their ability to innovate.
The Free Democrats have talked about freezing employer contributions and making individuals pay more. They also talked before the election of abolishing the two tier system which sees the wealthy 10% with private healthcare insurance (PKV) effectively subsidising the remaining 90% who have the compulsory cover offered by the krankenkasse statutory insurers. But, as a source at a krankenkasse put it: "That really did not go down very well with the electorate and so the Free Democrats quickly shut up about health." Others say that there is unlikely to be any change in the present dual system for at least two years.
Whilst a more free market system would, on the face of it, help private healthcare in Germany it could also remove some of the featherbedding. A lot of private healthcare in Germany depends upon the highly priced PKV tarriff.
