Head of Germany's largest health insurer calls for scrapping public-private split
TK chief executive Jens Baas wants to replace Germany's statutory and private health insurance with a single system combining the strengths of both, with no profits taken out.
Archive image · Photo: Nele Martensen / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Jens Baas, chief executive of Techniker Krankenkasse (TK), has called for a fundamental overhaul of Germany's dual system of statutory and private health insurance. "We should abolish private health insurance, but statutory insurance as well," he told Der Spiegel. Both should be replaced by a single combined system, he said. With more than 12 million members, TK is Germany's largest health insurer.
From the statutory system, Baas wants to keep the ban on risk selection, so insurers cannot cherry-pick low-cost customers. Members should also be able to switch insurers at any time, no profits should be extracted, and there should be defined standards for covered benefits. On the private side, he praised the fact that the state cannot touch private insurers' age-related reserves, as well as their greater freedom in contracting with doctors, hospitals and therapists.
Private insurers mostly fail to use that freedom because they are too small, Baas said, adding that it could be put into practice in a combined system. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) opened the debate on the two-tier system in September, saying there was a fairness problem if privately insured patients were seen as receiving preferential treatment, and signaled changes.