Study aims to disprove misconception: PKV is not insurance for the “rich”
23.07.2012 14:23
Private health insurance (PKV) is not insurance for higher earners or even richer people, because only around 20 percent of those with private insurance have an income that is above the compulsory insurance limit of currently around 50,000 euros in annual income. In addition, half of the insured community consists of non-employed people.
This is the result of a current study by the PKV Scientific Institute (WIP). These figures are confirmed by a survey by the largest private health insurance company, Debeka, of which around a quarter of all privately insured people are members. At Debeka, the number of supposedly “rich” people is even slightly lower at 16 percent. This clearly refutes the repeated claims made by proponents of compulsory citizen or uniform insurance against private health insurance. They assume that the PKV lacks solidarity because its insured people with supposedly high incomes evade the social principle of the GKV. The analysis now shows the opposite for the first time. Because PKV - like GKV - insures people from a wide range of social groups with different incomes, families with children as well as students and pensioners. However, those with private insurance make a much higher contribution to financing health costs than corresponds to their share of eleven percent of all health insured people in Germany, because they pay significantly more for their treatments.
“The PKV has a mixed population structure, we have always emphasized that, but people never wanted to hear it,” comments Uwe Laue, CEO of Debeka, on the analysis results. “That has to change now, because the main argument of the politically motivated anti-PKV propaganda with regard to standard insurance has been invalidated.”
According to Laue's statement, the alleged equality idea of compulsory insurance for citizens has also been refuted. Because in a standard insurance system, financially better off people would even more likely buy private medical services. There would then actually be real discrimination in the healthcare system, and even a division into different social classes that really differentiate between “poor” and “rich”. And the big problem of people getting older and increasing expenses is still not off the table, said the CEO. Laue is therefore also convinced that the discussion about citizens' insurance and the repeatedly spread clichés against private health insurance only serve to distract from the problems of statutory health insurance companies, to mislead voters and to divide society for ideological reasons.
Laue refutes possible criticism of the study in advance: “Anyone who believes that they can draw the reverse conclusion from the analysis, that there are people who do not belong in private health insurance due to their lower income because the contributions supposedly rise too much, is wrong . Individual negative examples of the last few months, for example when it comes to premium increases, are often converted by competitors from the statutory health insurance sector into blanket judgments about the entire industry and used for political purposes. This is dubious and – as this example once again confirms – reflects neither truth nor reality. At Debeka, the tariffs for employees and self-employed people were not increased at all at the beginning of the year, and for civil servants they were only increased by around 3.6 percent for the first time in two years. According to surveys by the analysis company MORGEN & MORGEN, the industry's premium increases for 2012 amounted to an average of 4.4 percent. Almost every second person insured with private health insurance had no premium adjustment at all. In the case of the statutory health insurance, however, the contribution rate was recently increased significantly from 14.9 to 15.5 percent, additional contributions were charged in some cases and significant benefit cuts were repeatedly made in the past.