Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Karl Lauterbach

Quote by Karl Lauterbach

“The quality of health care in Germany is not as good as people sometimes believe it to be. We have problems with chronic diseases. The German system allows too many hospitals and specialists to treat chronic diseases. We do not have enough volume in many institutions to deliver good quality, and we do have fairly strict separations ... between primary physicians, office specialists and hospital specialists. But I think the quality problems can be solved in the next couple of years, and we have made major progress in diabetes, coronary artery disease and pulmonary disease care.”

Quote by Karl Lauterbach

Create image

Author

Karl Lauterbach

Karl Lauterbach is a German politician and physician, born on February 21, 1963. He is active in the German political scene and has held multiple positions, while also achieving significant accomplishments in the field of medicine. more

You May Also Like

“I think the Scandinavian health systems are better when it comes to preventative care than the German system, because in the Scandinavian systems, the government is really more active in defining treatment, goals and defining health priorities. The German system is a competitive system with little government intervention. The price for this is that the government cannot set a health agenda. And the Scandinavian systems have little competition, so you often do have waiting lists. But on the other hand, you then have the government which can push for prevention.”

ThinkingCareWaitingGoalCompetitionPriorities
Author:Karl Lauterbach
Create image

“I think from an economics point of view, it is important that the money that is spent for health care is well spent - what is the cost-effectiveness of the money that is used? - because if the money is well spent, many people benefit from the system, and it is also a good market for finding employment. I do not see a reason why we should limit ourselves when it comes to very qualified and humane employment opportunities if there is no waste and if there is medical need.”

PeopleThinkingImportantReasonCareOpportunityPoint Of ViewMedicalHealth Care
Author:Karl Lauterbach
Create image

“In comparison to the U.S. health care system, the German system is clearly better, because the German health care system works for everyone who needs care, ... costs little money, and it's not a system about which you have to worry all the time. I think that for us the risk is that the private system undermines the solidarity principle. If that is fixed and we concentrate a little bit on better competition and more research, I think the German health care system is a nice third way between a for-profit system on the one hand and, let's say, a single-payer system on the other hand.”

ThinkingCareWorryNiceRiskCompetitionHealth CareComparisonSolidarity
Author:Karl Lauterbach
Create image

“The U.S. has a system that does have a poor cost-benefit ratio. I mean, 40 million people lack insurance; another 30 million or so are underinsured. The people who are insured do have to worry whether they are able to pay the bills. People become bankrupt because they cannot pay the medical bills, and there are vast differences in the quality of care depending on how much you are prepared and able to pay. I think the system is not working well.”

PeopleThinkingMeanCarePoorQualityWorryMedical
Author:Karl Lauterbach
Create image

“If you look at figures, we have a good supply of doctors in Switzerland. They always say that in the future we shall have a lack of home doctors, family doctors. I'm not sure of that, but we have a problem of formation. Every year there [are] about 1,000 students beginning medical studies, and at the end of the formation there are only 600 young people getting the diploma. It means that about 40 percent of the students fail during the studies, although there is a selection at the beginning. Forty percent is too much as failure, so probably there is a problem in the formation, education.”

PeopleMeanProblemHomeStudyFailingStudentsMedicalNot SureForty
Author:Pascal Couchepin
Create image

“If you look at the expenses of a great pharmaceutical company, they pay between about 10 to 15 percent of their expenses for research, but they use 30 to 40 percent of their incomes for marketing and promotion. It is not completely wrong that they spend so much, but it is not correct to say that there is a direct connection between the price of drugs and the cost of research. It could be more between the cost of marketing and the cost of the drugs.”

DrugDirectMarketingPromotionPharmaceutical
Author:Pascal Couchepin
Create image

“In the Swiss government there is a will to limit the number of doctors themselves, because with new bilateral agreements with the European Union, there is what we call the "free flow of persons"; that our borders are open to immigration. And as the Swiss doctors are better paid than others, we could have a huge increase of immigration of doctors, more than we need. So we decided to limit the numbers of doctors coming into Switzerland. It is not a very intelligent system, but it is the best one that we have found to limit immigration of doctors.”

IntelligentImmigrationEuropean Union
Author:Pascal Couchepin
Create image