Relief for health insurance funds: Patient advocate rejects BDA proposal / Eugen Brysch: A mixture of old chestnuts and half-baked ideas

Osnabrück (ots) – The German Foundation for Patient Protection rejects the current proposals from employers for financially relieving the healthcare system. "Many of these are old chestnuts, much of it half-baked. Upon closer inspection, the proposed savings burst like a soap bubble," said CEO Eugen Brysch to the "Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung" (NOZ). "Contact fees for doctor's visits have no steering effect and are a bureaucratic nightmare. Even a single breadwinner in a family is becoming obsolete these days," emphasized Germany's top patient advocate, referring to the Confederation of German Employers' Associations' (BDA) demand to abolish free co-insurance for spouses and reintroduce a co-payment for doctor's visits.

According to Brysch, the employers' proposed reduction in VAT on medications and remedies, or appropriate tax subsidies for recipients of basic income support, are doomed to fail due to the federal government's budget situation. "The BDA's savings targets are already being thwarted here," he told the NOZ. Brysch also stated that the BDA seems completely unaware that every insured person can already track the costs of their medical services in their electronic patient record.

Press contact: Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung editorial office, telephone: +49(0)541/310 207. Original content from: Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, transmitted by news aktuell. Original press release: https://www.presseportal.de/pm/58964/6147860