Munich (dpa / lby) - millions of people in Bavaria will have to pay more for their health insurance from the turn of the year. The AOK raises the contribution there by 0.28 percentage points. Instead of 15.9 percent, 16.18 percent will be deducted from gross wages from January. With more than 4.6 million insured persons, the AOK is by far the largest statutory health insurance company in Bavaria. The AOK Bayern is the first of the eleven general local health insurance funds nationwide to set its contribution rate for the coming year.
With the increase in the contribution rates, the AOK in Free State is within expectations: the federal government had declared at the end of October that in order to close the financial gap in statutory health insurance expected for next year, an average increase in contributions of 0.3 percentage points was "not unrealistic ".
The number one and number two among the nationwide health insurance companies, Techniker Krankenkasse and Barmer, have announced that they will keep their contributions stable. A number of other health insurance funds will also go into the coming year without an increase in the contribution rate, including the Knappschaft, the IKK Gesund Plus and the KKH.
AOK Bayern is increasing its contribution rate "precisely in order to fulfill its tasks," said Frank Firsching, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the German Press Agency. At the same time, he criticized the federal government's decision to largely liquidate the reserves that individual health insurance funds had formed. AOK Bayern gave 520 million euros to stabilize other funds.
