Federal Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) has argued that in the future, the healthcare costs for recipients of the Citizen’s Benefit (“Bürgergeld”) should be paid by tax money rather than by contributions from health insurance members. Speaking to the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung” (FAS), Warken stated, “If the state promises a service, it must pay for it in the interest of the community and cannot pass a significant portion of the cost onto the insured community. This is a matter of fairness. People are acutely aware of whether things in the country are equitable”.
The cost coverage is one of the issues expected to dominate public debate. The CDU politician noted, “This topic is being used by the far-right. Our job in the federal government is to counteract the poisoning of public debate”.
These cost assumptions were part of the proposals for a healthcare reform that an expert commission presented the previous Monday. However, such a reform would burden Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil’s (SPD) already strained budget with an additional twelve billion euros annually.
Warken believes that the general issues surrounding healthcare reform are crucial for the national mood. “If people feel they are paying more than others and politics fails to make changes, then trust in democracy continues to decline” she warned. “Preventing that is the central task for this legislative period”.