Deutschland-Check June Survey: Additional Health Insurance Premiums Cause Little Competition
Thus far, the additional insurance premiums have not led to more competition among the statutory health insurances. Only very few insurants switch their health insurance if their current one demands additional premiums. Such is the result of a representative survey by IW-consult, a subsidiary of the Institute of the German Economy Cologne (IW). The study was conducted on behalf of the Initiative for a New Social Market Economy (INSM) and the magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
Only every seventh of the insured employees reported to have switched health insurances before in order to save on the additional premiums. Since the introduction of the Gesundheitsfond (health fund) in 2009 statutory health insurances are allowed to levy premiums in addition to the regular wage-dependent payment of premiums in order to cover their expenses. Until the end of 2010 the additional premiums were capped at 1 percent of the income that was liable to contributions; since 2011 statutory health insurers are allowed to levy additional premiums as they please and with no upper limit. One of the reasons the additional premiums were introduced in the first place was the hope that people would switch to the health insurance with the lowest terms and hence increase the cost-benefit competition among the insurances.
On average, the survey shows that most of the insurants only have an incentive to switch their insurance once the additional premium reaches 19 Euro. “The additional premiums are too small to cause further competition. The surplus of the health fund should be used to reduce the wage dependent contributions as much as possible. If the future should prove these incomes to be insufficient each health insurance should try to break even by means of the additional premiums. This would definitely increase competition”, says Hubertus Pellengahr, chief executive of the Initiative for a New Social Market Economy. Wage-independent premiums would be fairer and more transparent. “Competition improves performance and efficiency and also cuts costs – this is also true for the bureaucracy-driven statutory health insurances”, says Pellengahr.
There is little reason to believe that additional premiums will cause more competition in the future. Only every fifth of the lawfully insured, who already pay additional premiums, is considering a health insurance switch. “The healthcare system must be reformed from scratch”, says Pellengahr. The rising costs of medical progress and demographic change should not be met by increasing the wage costs as before. “If we make labor more expensive, we will lose jobs that Germany should not abandon; unless one renounces the goal of full employment.”
In between the 17th and 24th of May, 1000 employees were interviewed online within the framework of the IW-Arbeitnehmervotum (IW employee vote). The random sample among employees between the ages of 16 and 65 is representative for Germany and stratified according to level of education, gender and age group. Employees with no formal education are not considered. The survey is part of the Deutschland-Check, a permanent study conducted by the INSM and the magazine WirtschaftsWoche.
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The initiative wants to renew the social market economy of Ludwig Erhard and adjust it to globalization, demographic change and the knowledge society. The INSM stands for a social system of freedom and responsibility.