GKV reform

In the last week of the session before the summer break, the Bundestag voted on the Statutory Health Insurance Contribution Rate Stabilization Act. The aim of the law is to improve the financial situation of statutory health insurance (GKV) and to limit any further increase in health insurance contributions. According to the federal government, the GKV is threatened with a financing gap of more than 15 billion euros from 2027. In order to stabilize contributions, the law provides for savings in hospitals, doctor's practices and pharmaceuticals. In addition, the administrative expenses of health insurance companies should be limited and the federal government should contribute more to the health costs of citizens' benefit recipients. There are also changes for insured people: the non-contributory family insurance for spouses and life partners will be restricted in certain cases, additional payments will be increased and subsidies for dentures reduced. These measures are intended to relieve the financial burden on statutory health insurance companies in the coming years. In a corresponding resolution recommendation from the Health Committee, the adoption of the draft law with comprehensive changes is recommended. In addition, the Budget Committee submitted a report on the financial feasibility of the federal government's draft law. The Statutory Health Insurance Contribution Stabilization Act was approved in the version amended by the Health Committee with 318 yes votes. 284 MPs voted against it, there were four abstentions from the SPD faction of Adis Ahmetović, Rasha Nasr, Truels Reichardt and Nina Scheer. In addition, Jan Dieren, Sabine Dittmar, Martin Kröber (all SPD faction) voted against the bill, as did Kai Whittaker (CDU/CSU faction). In addition to the roll-call vote on the GKV law, four motions for resolutions from the Die Linke parliamentary group were also voted on. Before the vote, Alliance 90/The Greens and The Left tried unsuccessfully to postpone the vote because, in their view, the deliberation time was too short. Urgent applications to the Federal Constitutional Court were also unsuccessful. You can find the other roll-call votes on the topic below under “Other roll-call votes”.

Vote breakdown