Die gesetzliche Krankenversicherung schwimmt zurzeit im Geld: Ende des 3. Quartals 2012 verfügten Gesundheitsfonds und Krankenkassen zusammen über Finanzreserven von rund 23,5 Mrd. Euro. Das schafft Begehrlichkeiten – nicht nur bei Ärzten, Apotheken und Krankenhäusern, sondern auch beim...

In 2009 the German central health fund was implemented. It was the result of a political compromise. One political party intended to equalise the risk structure among 130 different health care funds, and the other wanted to intensify competition and to improve efficiency among the different...

An unexpected surplus in the German statutory health insurance central fund has led to unwise discretionary decisions which should be avoided in the future. First, the setting of the contribution rate, which is currently politically determined, should be replaced by a rule-based procedure to...

The present division between statutory and private health insurance in Germany (GKV and PKV) is hard to justify. If it is the goal to include the whole population in the GKV eventually, one author states that the only legal way is to change its financing from wage-based contributions to a...