German Fear At Flight From State Funds

German Health Minister Horst Seehofer has warned that official reportson the first-half 1997 health budget deficit are contributing to push more people out of the state health funds and into private-sector insurance.

He also says the funds' income is stagnating in Germany as a whole and falling in the eastern states. While public-sector fund contribution rates will remain stable in western Germany, the eastern states' decline in fund income means that a new contributions rise cannot be ruled out.

The figures show a 1% decline in overall fund spending in first-half 1997, the first since reunification, but this hides 2.1% and 2.4% rises in outpatient and hospital treatment respectively, and a rise of only 0.3% in drug spending. The deficit is now running at 4 billion Deutschemarks ($2.18 billion), with western Germany accounting for 2.8 billion marks of the deficit.