31. 01. 12. - 15:51

Greens suggest €500mn health sector reform

Green party chairwoman Eva Glawischnig has called for a drastic health sector reform.

Glawischnig said she wanted to restructure the sector to achieve a substantial cost reduction. The Greens chief explained Austria’s 19 public health insurance companies should merge to form just one institution. Glawischnig said it was incomprehensible to her why the country needed so many individual institutions dealing with similar issues such as ensuring healthcare services for their clients.

Glawischnig said there were only historical reasons for the existence of insurance companies for the various professional groups. The Greens chairwoman said the suggested reform of the health sector as well as education sector changes and more public administration efficiency held a savings potential of 500 million Euros a year. Glawischnig admitted that most of the measures’ positive effects on the budget of the state would become evident only after a few years’ time. She called on the government coalition of Social Democrats (SPÖ) and the People’s Party (ÖVP) to prove patience and reasonability and give the green light to her ideas.

Glawischnig met with ÖVP Vice Chancellor Michael Spindelegger yesterday (Mon) to find out whether they agreed on details of the government’s planned debt limit. The Green Party made clear before that it would not support the coalition’s draft bill if it failed to feature higher income tax rates for wealthy Austrians. The opposition party is also in favour of an increase of taxes on assets – a measure the ÖVP is strictly against.

The SPÖ shows sympathies for the Green Party’s tax ideas but is also cautious not to fall out with the ÖVP ahead of the scheduled general election of 2013 since an early end to the coalition could give the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) a strong boost. ÖVP whip Karlheinz Kopf angered some Social Democrats for holding talks with FPÖ boss Heinz-Christian Strache about a debt brake agreement. SPÖ Chancellor Werner Faymann said none of the FPÖ’s suggestions concerning reducing the state debt could be taken seriously while SPÖ General Secretary Günther Kräuter branded Strache’s faction as a harmful factor of Austria’s political landscape.

Some analysts think that the ÖVP-FPÖ debt brake draft bill talks may herald another coalition of the parties which already cooperated between 2001 and 2005. The ÖVP’s hopes for a two-third majority for the debt brake bill in parliament burst when Strache branded the government’s austerity measures as a "placebo" shortly after having met with Kopf. The right-winger called on the SPÖ-ÖVP government to stop "dispossessing" Austrians – and called for a debate free of any taboos about whether leaving the Eurozone could be Austria’s "rescue boat" in the current economic turmoil.

Asked how he would restore the country’s budget, Strache said Austria must significantly lower the volume of subsidies it paid to private and public institutions each year. More than 15 billion Euros are spent this way each year, according to economists. The FPÖ leader called on Faymann and Spindelegger to consider the list of 599 suggestions of the Federal Audit Office (RH). RH President Josef Moser stressed that none of the proposed measures would worsen the domestic economy’s performance. Moser said there were many ways to sensibly raise the efficiency of Austria’s health sector and the state’s bureaucracy.

Meanwhile, former SPÖ Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer launched a harsh attack on the government. The ex-SPÖ boss – who served as chancellor for just one and a half years until 2008, criticised the coalition for increasing pensions by 2.7 per cent and public servants’ salaries by around 2.9 per cent. Gusenbauer said in an interview the government "is lacking the determination to save money". This statement follows his pledge not to comment daily politics after the end of his time as head of the government.