GERMAN HEALTH FEE PLAN BLOCKED

Germany's upper house of parliament has blocked a move by Health Minister Horst Seehofer to introduce a general regulation which would have the effect of cutting treatment fees for health service doctors.

An upper house committee has recommended rejecting the proposal on the grounds that it would lead to a rise in health service costs for the federal states, and that it would undermine the efforts to achieve stability in health fund spending, since the funds' spending budget for outpatient treatment would be increased by about 600 million Deutschemarks ($359 million). Fees for individual medical services would, however, fall in most cases.

The states also objected to the fact that drugs with patents registered after 1992 would no longer be included in the fixed-price support regime.