North Rhine‑Westphalia’s Health Minister Karl‑Josef Laumann (CDU) has rejected the calls that have been made by many groups to raise tobacco and sugar taxes. “Now is not the right time to discuss higher taxes” he told the “Rheinische Post”. “We have more pressing problems, such as stabilising the health system”.
Laumann argues that health‑care spending should be tied to the revenue of the statutory health insurers. “We spend about €500 billion per year on the health system. That must be enough. We need a revenue‑oriented spending policy, which means, for example, that medical fees and pharmaceutical expenditures cannot rise faster than the revenues”.
He also cautions the SPD against extending statutory health insurance coverage to all civil servants. “This would burden the federal government but especially the states with high costs, because the public‑service and police forces have so many employees. They would have to subsidise not only the treatment costs for retirees but also the employer contributions for new civil servants. At the moment I don’t see how the states could finance such a systemic shift” Laumann said.