The German health care system in permanent crisis - is the will for radical reform lacking?

The German health care system has come under criticism, and demands for fundamental reform are widespread. Prof. Dieter Cassel, University of Duisburg, however, rejects an abandonment of the solidarity principle that underlies the system: "If the health care system is to be more medically effective, economically efficient and better suited to the needs of the patient, the excessive and often confusing regulations of the government and insurers must be altered to allow more intensive competition in the system without, of course, abandoning the principle of solidarity on which the system is based." For Dr. Hans Jürgen Ahrens, chairman of the AOK statutory health insurance federation, major change in the German health care system is necessary in light of demographic developments, but changing the principles of the system is not necessary.