Health policy
Under health policy is understood on the one hand the policy area that deals with the planning, organization, management and financing of the health system and is responsible for its functionality. These include, among many other things, negotiations with the associations of health insurance, the hospital authorities, doctors and pharmacists and the pharmaceutical industry and the regulation in relevant laws and regulations.
On the other hand belongs to health policy but also influencing other health-related policies and areas of life such as education, work, housing, food, transport, environment, family, leisure. This " indirect health policy " may refer to the Public Health a stronger impact than the actual health system.
Objectives
The objectives of health policy should be
- That diseases and accidents can be avoided through prevention (prevention) as possible,
- That every citizen regardless of his income and assets will receive the necessary health care in case of illness,
- That this supply is provided with respect for human dignity and self-determination of the patient in the best possible quality,
- That the health system is working as efficiently and economically as possible,
- That the population with health care is satisfied and
- That the staff in the health sector has good working conditions.
These objectives relate not only to the State. A lot of it does not fall within his competence, but in the private-sector structures (for example, private hospitals, general practitioners, dentists, pharmacies, health insurers, etc.).
Germany
At the federal level, the Federal Ministry of Health is administratively mainly responsible. The federal states have their own competences, such as the organization of the public health service. Ensuring adequate hospital capacity is basically the duty of the counties and cities, the hospitals but do not need to provide either themselves. In addition, keep counties and county-level cities also health offices that are part of the public health service. The tasks of the public health offices include the perception amt of medical practice, such as conducting school examinations or the municipal planning of protective measures against pandemics.
As the costs of the health system should be limited as far as possible in spite of the demographic change, there was in this area a number of reforms and attempts at reform (see: health care reform in Germany ). The trend is not as yet in solidarity to all to spread the cost (eg, statutory insurance and parity employers ), but the individual according to individual risks impose different costs (so-called "ownership" ). By relieving especially the employer's share of social health insurance the wage costs are to be reduced.
Since 1976, in Germany there are indirect transfers of the statutory health insurance to other social security systems (pensions and unemployment insurance). The resulting emerged premium increases were used under the concept of cost explosion as a political means to power cuts and led under the slogan of "reform" to numerous changes in the structure of the social system. Due to the complexity of these structural changes have occurred in the sequence to an ever stronger influence by the authorities and thus to a growing formalization of work processes.
Since 2002 models are available in Germany in the discussion that ( etc. age, medical history, gender) determines the current duality of statutory health insurance with contraction force and family co-insurance and private health insurance that above a certain income level ( upper limit) risks according to individual assessment per person, peel off. Focus of the debate is a model of health insurance premium and a citizen in different configurations.