ÖGK Budget Hole: Medical Association Calls for Crisis Summit
In view of the over 900 million euro budget deficit of the Austrian Health Insurance Fund (ÖGK) for 2025, the Medical Association is alarmed. "The fund, as an important pillar of healthcare provision, is becoming increasingly unstable," stated ÖÄK President Johannes Steinhart in a press release on Saturday. The professional association is demanding a crisis summit.
Medical Association Calls for Immediate Measures
As immediate measures, sustainable efficiency improvements must now be implemented, financing secured, and the unified service catalog implemented, according to Steinhart. The Medical Association had long since presented the latter. Those responsible are obliged to sustainably strengthen the solidarity-based healthcare system again, emphasized Steinhart: "We are committed to a system that offers every patient the best possible care - this commitment must also come from politics, in the form of concrete measures."
"Would Be a Disgrace"
"A country like Austria can and must afford to make healthcare one of the core tasks of the federal government," says Edgar Wutscher, Vice President of the Austrian Medical Association and Chairman of the Federal Curia of General Practitioners. Problems are escalating in all federal states, and in some, the ÖGK is completely non-existent as a negotiating partner. Therefore, a crisis summit with all representatives in health policy is urgently needed. "It would be a disgrace for a wealthy country like Austria if the solidarity-based insurance system is ruined," says Wutscher.
Support from Ludwig
For Vienna's Mayor Michael Ludwig (SPÖ), healthcare is also "absolutely a priority." Therefore, at the beginning of the year, a package for the modernization of hospitals until 2030 was decided in Vienna, with an investment budget of 3.3 billion euros allocated for it.
The upcoming federal government must also place healthcare at the top of its priority list. "Now all those responsible are called upon to pull together to solve the major challenges in the healthcare sector," emphasized Ludwig, who "absolutely" supports the Medical Association's demand.
(APA/Red)
This article has been automatically translated, read the original article here.