Published 20 May 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2045
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2045

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German doctors’ leader calls for debate on rationing

Annette Tuffs

1 Heidelberg

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Patients should pay for more diagnostic procedures and treatments out of their own pockets, the leader of the German Medical Association has proposed.

Jörg-Dietrich Hoppe, the association’s president, has called for a public debate about the rationing of health care in Germany. He has proposed that a committee of doctors, lawyers, and patient representatives be established to suggest to politicians which diagnostic procedures and therapies should in future be paid by the patients themselves and no longer by health insurance companies.

Emergency cases as well as patients with stroke, heart attack, and other severe diseases, such as malignant tumours, should have first priority, Dr Hoppe said in an interview with the online version of the daily newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau (www.fr-online.de, 8 May, "Cholesterinsenker nur in Ausnahmen").

Second priority should be patients with pain that is untreatable, such as that caused by degeneration of the hip joint. However, treatment . . . [Full text of this article]


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