A new trend in healthcare could continue under a CDU-led federal government: higher tariffs, less service. The Adenauer Foundation, a think tank affiliated with the CDU, recently proposed that patients with health insurance cover be assigned a doctor – or pay higher tariffs for free choice of doctor. This was reported by the MDR on Monday.
Critics argue that this proposal is an affront, given that health insurance costs for employees have been rising sharply in recent years. The head of the Association of Family Doctors, Markus Beier, considers the proposal unrealistic and points to legal regulations and a massive administrative burden that would be impossible to implement.
Beier says the proposal contains two statements: “One we welcome, namely that family doctor’s offices are the first point of contact. We reject the idea of overhauling the current system with a tariff model. It won’t work like that. It requires certain quality and a bond between patient and practice, which won’t work with a stroke of a pen.”
Specialist doctors exercise even stronger criticism. The idea of free choice of doctor only for those willing to pay more is, in itself, legally unfeasible, warns Uwe Kraffel, the deputy chairman of the German Association of Specialist Doctors. The Social Code regulates that every person has the right to free choice of doctor and at least one second medical opinion. He emphasizes, “If you want to use an ophthalmologist as an example, that won’t work because it would involve a massive administrative effort to assign doctors somewhere.”
Criticism also comes from the Left Party: free choice of doctor only for those willing to pay more is a model only for the wealthy, says Eva von Angern, the chair of the Left Party’s parliamentary group in the State of Saxony-Anhalt: “It completely disregards the reality in East Germany and especially in Saxony-Anhalt.”
At least in the eastern wing of the CDU, the think tank’s proposal also meets with little enthusiasm. The CDU’s health policy spokesperson in the Saxony-Anhalt state parliament, Daniela Kuge, says, “I don’t find the proposal very good, as there is indeed the danger of a two-class society, even in medicine and that’s why it would be a step forward if we returned to the family doctor model. We’ve already done it in Saxony and it’s a good solution. The family doctor model is that everyone has a fixed family doctor who takes care of them and decides whether they really need a specialist or not and then gives a referral.