A problem in healthcare that has hardly been noticed: increasing contributions and declining services – a culture of irresponsibility?

In the public debates about the future of state health care, one dimension is often under the table: The creeping corruption and growing infidelity within the system. Behind the scenes, a network of privileges, double standards and abuse of power is formed, which has long since lost the basis on which state welfare once rested. while theInsured persons are making ever higher contributions and being charged with co-payments, a bureaucratic monster is thriving, which brings the original idea of a solidarity healthcare system to absurdity.

Officials in the system – a glaring double standard

Those who manage the state health system often enjoy a special position themselves. You are privately insured at the expense of the general public and benefit from extras that are denied to normal insured persons. At the same time, they are supervising a system in which these privileges are considered normal. This blatant double standard not only undermines trustthe citizen, but creates a hierarchy in the healthcare system in which the administrators and decision-makers put their own interests before the common good.

Bureaucracy as an end in itself

The bureaucracy costs are exploding because there are too many people in charge who should control each other but nobody wants to exercise control. In countless ministries, state authorities and supervisory bodies, administrative acts are piling up, while the patients hardly improve anything. At each administrative level, new positions are created, new departments and new management positions,deal with the pros and cons of endless regulations. The result is an unmanageable maze in which every innovation is nipped in the bud.

Splitting by countless forms of insurance

The health system is like a patchwork quilt from a large number of health insurance companies, each of which defines its own rules and tariffs. In addition, there is the additional spin-off of long-term care insurance, which acts as a separate structure and creates further administrative burdens. This fragmentation model leads to inefficient competition in which cost is not an obstacle, but mediumto secure your own sphere of influence. Those affected must dig through complex tariffs instead of receiving quick and uncomplicated help in the event of illness.

A culture of irresponsibility

Responsibility is eliminated all too often in healthcare. If benefits are reduced or additional payments are increased, no one is responsible for the consequences at the bedside. Politicians point to the health insurance companies, the health insurance companies are pushing the government, and in the ministries people feel the deceptive feeling that everything is regulated. Patients are left in a hurry and helplessWhile the system sets its own priorities and the individual person gets out of sight.

Services shrink, loads grow

At the same time as the administrative costs increase, the actual performance level is decreasing. Outpatient treatments and expensive medications are only taken over to a limited extent. Co-payments for medicines, aids and remedies are constantly being reintroduced. The insured are confronted with increasing contributions and higher deductibles without themreceive recognizable added value. This paradox of growing spending and shrinking care drives many people in despair and undermines the idea of a solidarity health system.

The role of media blindness

In public perception, the negative headlines about alleged performance abuse lawsuits and individual cases of fraud among patients have long been dominated. Systemic corruption within the administration and the decision-making bodies remains largely unlit. Politicians complain about mismanagement in clinics while they are actually mismanaged by complex and expensiveobscure administrative structures. In this way, those responsible benefit from a media landscape that is looking for more spectacular isolated cases than questioning structural failure.

International models as a shining example

Other states show that there is another way. There, health care is financed entirely from taxpayers’ money and is free of charge for the population. The responsibilities are clearly regulated, from nationwide financing to local performance organization. This transparency and clarity reduces the cost of bureaucracy dramatically. doctors, nursing staff andAdministrative employees work under a uniform roof that gives all those involved clear rules and effectively fills up corruption spaces.

The view abroad

A look abroad demonstrates that a uniform, tax-financed system is not a utopia, but a practicable solution. If the private supplementary insurance is abolished and the long-term care insurance is integrated into the overall system, enormous bureaucracy costs could be saved. A transparent budget in which health expenditure is clearly identified and controlled,Prevents darkrooms from forming. Doctors and nurses relieve the administrative structure instead of being blocked by billing nirvana.

A start to a just health system

It is high time to make the little-noticed side of corruption visible in state healthcare. Where officials maintain their own privileges and at the same time control the system, a swamp of double standards emerges, which causes the roots of care to die. A fundamental change towards a transparent, tax-financed model would not onlyContain bureaucracy costs, but redirect the health system to service to people. Only through clear responsibilities and the reduction of unnecessary administrative structures can the core of health care – the human being in the center – be revived.