As of: February 25, 2024, 6:55 a.m
By: Sebastian Horsch
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Health Minister Karl Lauterbach promises more money and transparency for clinics.
But critics warn against his plans - especially in Bavaria.
Munich – Karl Lauterbach is in good spirits.
“There is more money for the clinics and a better overview of the quality of the hospitals,” said the Federal Health Minister after the meeting of the Mediation Committee of the Bundestag and Bundesrat on Wednesday evening.
After months of federal-state disputes, it has just been decided that the planned online atlas on the offering and quality of treatment in clinics should start on May 1st.
“The decision is the result of constructive cooperation between the federal and state governments,” says the minister happily.
But what Lauterbach presents as an agreement is actually not an agreement at all.
“Rather, the Hospital Transparency Act was pushed through in its unchanged version by the traffic light majority against the vote of the Union side,” says Bavaria’s Health Minister Judith Gerlach (CSU).
After he had previously made a mess with the states as a whole because he stalled them and made them fear that he would intervene in their hospital planning, Lauterbach has apparently managed to get some of them back on his side.
“Lauterbach is not interested in real collaboration”
There is also great Bavarian surprise that Lauterbach is “unilaterally” announcing a transformation fund worth 50 billion euros as part of the reform of the hospital landscape that is also planned in the next step, half of which will come from the federal health fund and half from the federal government for ten years from 2025 should be filled by the states.
“This approach confirms the impression that Lauterbach has no interest in real cooperation with the states on an equal footing,” says Gerlach.
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) in the Bundestag © M. Popow/Imago
The health insurance companies, which are no longer a bed of roses financially and fear that they will have to take over the federal share of 25 billion, are also alarmed.
Lauterbach doesn't seem to have spoken to them either.
The guild health insurance companies are already warning of a “burden for those paying contributions”.
At the same time, clear signals are coming from the traffic light coalition that they actually see the health insurance companies as having a responsibility.
“States and health insurance companies are responsible for financing the healthcare system,” explains FDP budget politician Karsten Klein.
“Therefore, no money from the federal budget for the reform.”
Criticism of Lauterbach's reform also came from the Bavarian Hospital Society
For Roland Engehausen, all of this is a thing of the future anyway.
“A future transformation fund is necessary for structural change, but not a solution for the current situation,” says the managing director of the Bavarian Hospital Society, which represents the interests of the clinics.
Engehausen also demands a catalog of criteria for our newspaper as to why the money in the planned transformation fund should ultimately flow to the houses.
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The liquidity support of six billion euros also announced by Lauterbach is of little help because it only involves early payments.
“The current financial distress and risk of insolvency in hospitals” will “not be eliminated at all,” says Engehausen.
To compensate for the inflation gap that has opened up since 2022 because hospitals cannot simply increase prices despite increased costs, a “binding adjustment of regular revenues” is needed.