Health insurance costs continue to increase: “No system canceled in the long run”

The expenses of the health insurance companies continue to increase unbroken. In the first half of the year, the approximately 90 statutory health insurance companies spent 166.1 billion euros on their services. This is an increase of 7.95 percent compared to the same period of the previous year, as can be seen from new key figures from your GKV top association that the German Press Agency is available. This Friday, Federal Minister of Health Nina Warken (CDU) wants to inform about the financial development of statutory health insurance (GKV) in the first half of the year.

The surplus of health insurance companies increased to 2.8 billion euros is striking. After record deficits in 2024, a surplus of 1.8 billion euros had already arisen by the end of March.

“But that shouldn’t calm anyone,” said the chairman of the GKV top association, Oliver Blatt, the dpa. “The output dynamics are unbroken in the first half of the year.” The surplus is urgently necessary to replenish the statutory minimum reserve of the health insurers. There had been a reduction in reserves in recent years. “With a view to the dynamic expenditure development, it is still open whether this can succeed,” said Blatt.

With the largest cost block, the hospital treatments alone, the plus exceeded the first half of the 2024 (7.9 percent) at 9.6 percent. 54.5 billion euros now flowed to the clinics. Expenditures for doctors rose by 7.8 percent to 27.0 billion, which for medicines 6 percent to EUR 28.9 billion.

Blatt said: “It cannot go on like this, such increase rates do not endure the world’s health system in the long run.”

Sheet called for an expenditure moratorium and structural reforms. These should be noticeable for the insured in everyday life – for example by faster doctor’s appointments. In the long term, however, Blatt also wants to prevent the gap between spending and revenue apart and “come back to stable finances”.