>> Since the end of the 1970s, German statutory health insurance (GKV) has been threatened with a derailment of its costs. In 1982, Social Affairs Minister Norbert Blüm came up with the brilliant and diabolical idea of proclaiming a revenue-oriented spending policy (thesis: a household can only spend as much as it takes in.) Since that time, there has been a cap on the GKV budget (“capped pot”) With government regulation and approval, only a few percent increase per year is allowed. This budget currently amounts to almost 300 billion euros per year, with hospitals, private doctors, health insurance companies, pharmacies/pharmaceutical industry and pension funds fighting over their shares. A popular means of health policy is to “promote” competition between service providers. As a result of competition in the closed system - which now threatens the existence of the medical system - an objectification of medical care has developed in the sense of commercialization and economization, as was urgently discussed at the just ended German Doctors' Day in Hanover.
Each care provider in the system is equipped with the most sophisticated budgeting and P

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