Private Medical Association e. V
Frankfurt (ots)
The German healthcare system is on the verge of collapse. Health Minister Karl Lauterbach expects a deficit of 17 billion euros for the statutory health insurance system this year. The Association of Private Physicians (PBV) is therefore calling for a radical rethink: “Politics must finally put the brakes on costs in the interests of patients,” says Thomas Ems, Managing Director of the PBV. “You have to put an end to the economically no longer justifiable system with 96 statutory health insurers, all of which offer more or less the same thing. If you drastically reduce the number of health insurers, you will cut the costs significantly in one fell swoop.”
In addition, according to Ems, in return, private health insurance companies should be allowed to open up to everyone. Because only with more competition between private insurance companies could the healthcare system be financed in the future. “Especially since the generation model of the GKV is doomed to fail anyway,” emphasizes Ems. In fact, calculations show that four contributors pay for one pensioner today. In just a few years, however, one contributor will have to pay for two pensioners.
Big savings for every single patient
Finally, according to Ems, it is indisputable that every privately insured person is cheaper and at the same time has a more comprehensive range of services: “Independent calculations show that even today an employed person in their mid-thirties with a salary below the compulsory insurance limit when switching to private health insurance every month up to could save up to 150 euros.”
According to the PBV, everyone in Germany would ultimately benefit from a restructuring of the health system: “The more members switch from statutory to private health insurance, the more the contributions for each individual drop,” explains Ems. “You could already see that in the past with supplementary insurance. These, too, have become cheaper the more people have opted for them.”
Survey: Patients do not know how much a visit to the doctor costs
Meanwhile, the health system for German citizens seems to have long since become an opaque jungle. According to a representative survey by the opinion research institute Innofact on behalf of the PBV among 1,102 German citizens, they are particularly annoyed by the lack of cost transparency: Two out of three respondents (68 percent) want more insight into the costs of their doctor’s visit. And in fact, only 18 percent of those surveyed correctly estimate the costs, for example for the initial anamnesis. As a rule, these costs are between 20 and 40 euros – but in the Innofact survey, almost half of those surveyed (48 percent) estimated the costs at 51 to 100 euros. 34 percent even expect costs of over 100 euros.
Press contact:
Private Medical Association e. V
Media contact: communications consultant Philipp Ley
[email protected], +49 (0)2234 3899127
Original content from: Private Medical Association e. V., transmitted by news aktuell