Protest against reforms – Medical Association describes Rauch as a “gravedigger”

Chamber boss Johannes Steinhart tried to reinterpret the joint reform project of the federal, state and social security systems as a plan to end the social partnership.

Once again he threatened a situation without a contract, in which patients would have to pay their own medical costs and would only receive part of them back from the health insurer. “If the government thinks it can conclude a contract without involving the doctors, we will withdraw.”

“You won’t remember anything good”
Vice President Harald Mayer, warning of a “dismantling of all proven healthcare structures,” saw private medicine on fire and overburdened hospital outpatient clinics flooded. “Johannes Rauch will go down in history as the gravedigger of the solidarity health care system,” Mayer concludes: “That will at least ensure that he will be remembered, even if not in a good way.”

Rauch seems unimpressed
“The fact is: we are investing an extra billion euros in healthcare, while President Steinhart is talking about an austerity package. We are creating hundreds of additional checkout points, while the medical association fears that the healthcare system will be privatized,” Rauch said.

Accusations “absurd”
Salzburg oncologist Richard Greil came across another project, namely the creation of a drug evaluation committee as part of the accompanying budget law. FPÖ health spokesman Gerhard Kaniak took this as an opportunity to portray Rauch as an “executioner of those who are already suffering, from whom he would like to take away their last hope.” Rauch immediately dismissed these accusations as “absurd.”