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Berlin – Healthcare expenses for people receiving citizenship benefits continue to be significantly higher than the amount transferred from tax money to the statutory health insurance system (GKV). A current study by GKV estimates that a total of 9.2 billion euros per year are missing from legal health insurance IGES Institute in the name of National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds before.
The institute had already commissioned the Federal Ministry of Health in 2016 (BMG) calculated an equally high deficit. The traffic light coalition, but also the grand coalition in the previous legislature, had agreed on a solution to this underfunding of state contributions for those who receive money from citizens in coalition agreements.
“The federal government is making savings at the expense of statutory health insurance,” explained Doris Pfeiffer, president of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, to journalists in Berlin. “As a result of systematic underfunding, statutory health insurance loses millions every year. This annual underfunding of health care for those receiving citizen benefits will likely be even greater in 2023 and 2024 due to the growing number of benefit recipients.”
According to calculations by the IGES Institute, in 2016 the fixed contribution for each beneficiary of Unemployment Benefit II (Harz IV) was then 90.36 euros. In 2022, it was already 108.48 euros, which were paid to the GKV with tax money. A fixed rate for cost coverage would have been 275.31 euros per month in 2016 and 311.45 euros per month in 2022. This means that in 2016 there was a coverage ratio of 38 percent, which will be 39 percent in 2022.
Although healthcare costs have increased, since 2016 the number of Harz IV beneficiaries, now citizens’ money, has decreased, the amount missing from statutory health insurance has also decreased slightly from 9.5 billion (2016) to 9 .2 billion (2022).
The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds demands that federal politicians join the coalition agreement on this issue. “With sufficient funding of health care provided by statutory health insurance companies for those receiving citizen benefits, we could have talked about reducing contribution rates at the beginning of the year rather than having to implement increases in contribution rates ,” said Pfeiffer.
The nine billion euros correspond to around 0.5 contribution points, explained the National Association of Mandatory Health Insurance Funds. Pfeiffer noted that things work differently in other aid systems outside of citizens’ money: municipalities assume full reimbursement of costs for those receiving social assistance. For beneficiaries of benefits from privately insured citizens, taxpayers pay premiums of up to 421.77 euros.
“Therefore, there must be fair financing through fixed monthly rates that cover costs in the statutory health insurance system for those who receive citizen benefits from the federal government,” Pfeiffer continued. © bee/aerzteblatt.de