Faster and more: municipalities and districts want billions in aid to avoid bankruptcies. Lauterbach's reform is inadequate.

We should contribute a few billion more: Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach Photo: dpa

SEDAN dpa | To avoid a wave of hospital insolvencies, municipalities and districts are demanding billions of dollars in aid greater and faster than anticipated by the federal government. “The reform plans probably arrive too late for the homes that need them,” said the president of the association of cities and municipalities, Uwe Brandl, on Monday after a high-level meeting with the Federal Minister of Health, Karl Lauterbach (SPD ), In Berlin. “We believe the system needs fresh money.” The president of the regional council, Reinhard Sager, called for emergency aid to improve the liquidity of the clinics.

Looking at the federal states, Lauterbach insisted that a hospital law that was already approved in the Bundestag also received the green light in the Bundesrat. This would mobilize short-term liquidity of more than €6 billion for the clinics, he said. “More than 100 hospitals are at risk of bankruptcy in 2024 without the law,” Lauterbach said, citing a study.

In addition to billions in aid to finance collective salary increases, the core of the project is, above all, the creation of a “transparency directory”: patients should receive online information about, among other things, how much experience a clinic with certain services. The law was initially rejected by the federal states, so it must be discussed in the mediation committee of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat. However, it is not yet on the committee's agenda. Lauterbach blamed the states of the Union for this. He again insisted that the law must be approved before February 2.

Months of negotiations

The Transparency Law also aims to prepare an important hospital financial reform. The federal and state governments have been negotiating this for months. The goal is to free hospitals from the financial pressure of having to treat more and more patients with lucrative, revenue-driven procedures through fundamentally different payments.

In principle, the association of cities and municipalities and the district council supported Lauterbach's reform plans. However, Brandl said: “We do not see the liberation effect to the extent that the ministry estimates.” Sager said previous plans would not stop the impending wave of insolvencies in the hospital sector. “At the end of the summer we still had around two dozen clinics in need in Germany. The number has now increased to three dozen,” Sager said. This shows that after the coronavirus and rising energy prices, the federal government needs to bring fresh money into the system.

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The director of the German Foundation for Patient Protection, Eugen Brysch, stated that the transparency law is important for patients. “But if hospitals die earlier, especially in rural areas, the lack of supply here is inevitable.” Federal and state governments would now have to determine which clinics should have a guarantee of existence.

Health insurance companies resisted the call for fresh money. “Fresh money with a watering can does not solve any problem, but rather prevents necessary changes,” said spokesman for the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, Florian Lanz. “Despite the growing shortage of nurses and doctors, we must ensure comprehensive care in rural and urban areas.”