The controversial hospital reform is intended to reduce financial pressure and also achieve greater specialization. What does this mean for the network of clinic locations?
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach expects that clinics will also close as a result of the hospital reform. “It is very clear that in ten years at the latest we will have a few hundred fewer hospitals,” said the SPD politician to “Bild am Sonntag”. That is also true. “We don’t have the medical needs for these hospitals.” Every third bed is already empty and there are not enough staff. Clinics are likely to disappear, especially in major western German cities. At the same time, he emphasized that needed houses in the countryside would receive supplements in order to survive.
Lauterbach also explained on Sunday that the reform ensures comprehensive supply and ensures greater quality. “Hospitals in the countryside will remain intact. But several hundred clinics – especially in major western German cities – will no longer be able to continue working as before. They will be repurposed or will no longer be able to offer all services.” He was sure that the countries would plan this responsibly. “The reform helps to prevent uncontrolled hospital deaths.”
This is what is planned with the hospital reform
The reform passed by the Bundestag is intended to put the financing of clinics on a new basis and lead to more specialization in more complicated procedures. It is planned to change the current remuneration with flat rates for treatment cases in clinics. In the future, they should receive 60 percent of the remuneration for holding certain offers. This is intended to reduce the pressure to treat as many cases as possible.
According to the Ministry of Health, Germany has the highest hospital and bed density in Europe with around 1,700 hospitals. Many clinics are in the red. Lauterbach therefore sees the reform as an emergency brake: without changes there is a risk of clinic insolvencies, poor treatment and long journeys. The reform finally goes to the Federal Council. It does not require approval, but the state chamber could send it to the mediation committee and slow it down. The reform is scheduled to come into force on January 1, 2025. The new structure is to be implemented gradually until 2029.
Lauterbach: No increase in health insurance contributions for 2026
After the predicted increase in health insurance contributions in 2025, Lauterbach does not expect any further increases for the time being. He does not believe that health insurance contributions will have to be increased again for 2026. “With the reforms that we have already made, which are now starting to take effect, and the reforms that we are currently making, this increase in contribution rates will actually come to a halt.”
Lauterbach called the increase in contributions predicted by experts historic. Experts from the so-called estimator group had determined a mathematically necessary increase in the average additional contribution by 0.8 points to 2.5 percent of the income subject to contributions for the 2025 federal election year. However, the value is a theoretical quantity. Each health insurance company decides for itself how much the additional contribution increases. The total contribution shared by employers and employees also includes the general rate of 14.6 percent of gross wages.
Without the hospital reform, the contribution rate would not have increased as much as is now expected, said Lauterbach. “The hospital reform now costs something in the short term and puts pressure on the contribution rate.” Criticism of the costs of the reform comes from the opposition. The CDU health politician Tino Sorge wrote on Platform
Source: Stern
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