At the moment, the abolition of private health insurance (PKV) is a contentious issue between experts who are well placed to assess the dual health insurance system. A study by the Iges Institute, commissioned by the Bertelsmann Foundation, judges the division of German insureds into two camps – privately insured with 8.8 million people and SHI members with currently 73.2 million – as no longer appropriate. Based on repeat surveys in around 12,000 households, the survey results indicate that if all German citizens were covered by statutory health insurance, health insurance premiums could be reduced significantly. The analysis comes to the conclusion that 145 euros could then be saved per current member of the SHI system. However, this would require members of private health insurance companies to be included in the statutory health insurance scheme (GKV), because those who earn well and are self-employed, but also civil servants in the private health insurance scheme, who earn more on average and are also healthier, the study found, could significantly reduce the current contribution rate by 0.6 to 0.7 percentage points. The net financial surplus would then be between 8.7 and 10.6 billion euros per year. However, not all experts in the industry want to see an abolition of private health insurance, such as dbb head Ulrich Silberbach, who does not welcome the abolition of the dual system, which is unique in Europe and „one of the best in the world“. Foundation member and health expert Stefan Etgeton, like foundation board member Brigitte Mohn, criticizes the fact that the split weakens social cohesion in our society because high earners, in particular, would elude the solidarity-based system. Criticism is also levelled at the regional distribution of privately insured persons in combination with an accumulation of physicians‘ offices, as the example of Bavaria shows, where many physicians have medical practices within a small area. If the loss of fees were to be compensated for by privately insured persons with two and a half times the remuneration, an even lower contribution rate of 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points could be achieved, according to the conclusion of the current study. According to the Bertelsmann Foundation’s résumé, in the future, health insurance contributions must no longer take into account the individual health risk, but the financial capacity of each insured person.
