austerity policy | Patients on the way to the Valley of Tears

The cuts in care and health care are unlikely to be as precise as a scalpel. Photo: dpa/Oliver Berg Shortly after being sworn in, Health Minister Carsten Linnemann (CDU) learned in detail about the pitfalls of his new job: a third less money in the budget for 2027, criticism of the government plans from all sides and also from the coalition itself.

What the new head of department has said so far is not wrong: there is too much money in the system, more efficiency, better patient management and less bureaucracy are needed. Just saying that insurance premiums would have to fall again seems a very frivolous statement. And overall it is not enough: the loud lobbyists in the healthcare sector are not satisfied, they must be heard and contained. Patients and employees alike should not be forgotten.

However, the austerity plans of the predecessor and the federal government have not gone away, and there has not yet been any talk of new financial sources. Except for one idea from the Federal Ministry of Social Affairs: According to this, there could be a risk balance between private and social long-term care insurance. Good cause, but still far from having been fought through against the guardians of sacred property.

So it will probably be more expensive for the insured in the near future, especially as a result of a structural commission announced by the minister. Just as bad as even higher costs would be that health and care services would be massively thinned out. As a result, there will be more seriously ill people who will either be much more expensive to care for or die earlier. The result of a policy with funding reservations would sooner or later be a further decline in life expectancy. But why does that matter to a government that wants to be re-elected?

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