The federal government promises stable health insurance contributions, but does not say how it wants to do this. That can only go wrong.
“Don’t worry, we regulate that.” This could be called the play that performs the black and red coalition in health policy these days. As of January 1, 2026, there should be no higher contributions to health and long-term care insurance, which has been agreed on this in the coalition committee. So far, so calming. However, the Union and SPD left an important detail unmentioned: how exactly that should work.
Instead, the renewed reference to the use of an expert commission. True to the motto: What gives the appearance of “We take care” with the pension insurance also does so with health and long-term care insurance. It should start this month and thus significantly earlier than planned, but their suggestions should only work from 2027. How does that match stable articles from 2026? Unclear.
A quick solution could have been available to provide additional money in the 2025 budget to prevent the impending new contributions. But that is not planned either. Nevertheless, the population is suggested: we have everything under control. The government cannot completely determine how high the health insurance contributions are. Only the general sentence of currently 14.6 percent is in their hands. The health insurance companies themselves decide on the additional contributions and recently screwed them up properly.
It doesn’t matter to the insured why they have to pay a larger part of their gross salary to their health insurance company every few months, if not every few months. In the end, the only thing that remains is that the contributions have increased – different from what the federal government now claims. A dangerous game with false expectations.
