German health reform "based on consent"

Germany's Health Minister, Ulla Schmidt, has told the country's medicalprofessionals that the government's proposed health service reform will be based on the consent of all those involved. Speaking at their annual conference last month, Ms Schmidt indicated that the basis on which the health insurance system is funded would change.

She rejected the call made by panel doctors to reduce the services offered through the health funds to a basic list, on the grounds that this would affect people on low incomes and would be socially unjust.

Conference president Joerg-Dietrich Hoppe called for health-fund premiums to be uncoupled from basic wage rates that were not suitable for reimbursement and to be charged to patients or funded through taxation. The Minister, meanwhile, indicated that a series of round-table discussions would be held with health care professions to prepare the reforms, and she said it had to be clear as to whether the basis to fund the reforms existed in the first place.