“No proven benefit”
Lauterbach wants to remove homeopathy as a health insurance benefit
January 10, 2024, 9:35 p.m
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Statutory health insurance is missing billions every year. Health Minister Lauterbach therefore wants to tighten his belt. In the future, homeopathy should no longer be a statutory health insurance benefit.
According to a media report, Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wants to remove homeopathic treatments from the catalog of services offered by statutory health insurance companies. “Services that have no medically proven benefit must not be financed from contributions,” says a recommendation paper from the minister, which was first available to “Spiegel”. “For this reason, we will delete the option for health insurance companies to provide for homeopathic and anthroposophical services in their statutes and thus avoid unnecessary expenditure by health insurance companies.” However, private supplementary insurance should still be possible.
Lauterbach had already announced last year that he would review the financing of homeopathic treatments. “Although homeopathy is not significant in terms of expenditure, it has no place in a science-based health policy,” the SPD politician told “Spiegel” last October. According to the magazine, however, the measure would save a maximum of ten million euros. A comparatively small amount. Because not all health insurance companies make use of the option to reimburse homeopathy. In addition, not all insured people are interested in it.
Statutory health insurance (GKV) has been missing billions of dollars every year since the Corona pandemic. In recent years, the federal government has offset the deficit with tax revenue. This is not planned for next year – also because of the tight budget situation.
Lauterbach is likely to find support for his austerity measures among the Greens. At a party conference in 2020, they decided that statutory health insurance companies would only cover services “that are medically sensible and justified and whose effectiveness has been scientifically proven”.
In addition to homeopathy, Lauterbach also wants to save on the administrative costs of health insurance companies. According to the recommendation paper, which is also available to RTL/ntv, in 2024 the formation of retirement provisions for pension commitments to employees of the health insurance funds should be restricted, “which go beyond the necessary level confirmed by actuarial reports.”