Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) voiced skepticism regarding the most significant reform proposal from the expert commission concerning statutory health insurance. According to Klingbeil during a “Süddeutsche Zeitung” interview on Saturday, allocating the health costs for recipients of the citizen’s allowance entirely through tax funds-instead of social contributions-would cost approximately twelve billion euros.
While the SPD leader stated he does not object to the concept in principle, he pointed out that the current budget already has gaps. “These gaps will not get smaller if we take out more money” Klingbeil noted.
He characterized the commission’s proposal as not being a genuine relief, but rather a simplistic calculation. “It is useless to shift gaps from A to B. We must close them generally” he stated.
In its recently published report, the Finance Committee for Health had recommended that the federal government should cover all healthcare expenses for citizen’s allowance recipients because this benefit is not tied to insurance. This represents the proposal with the largest financial scope. The suggestion was that a higher tax subsidy could reduce contributions for those covered by statutory insurance while simultaneously drawing in privately insured people to help finance the system.