A word of welcome from the Chair
Welcome to the web pages of the Committee on Health. I am delighted that you are making use of our Internet service, which I hope will give you some insight into our work and make it more transparent for you.
When it comes to appointing permanent committees at the start of an electoral term for the duration of that term, the structure adopted by the Bundestag largely follows the organisational structure of the Federal Government. A permanent committee generally covers the portfolio of a federal ministry. Accordingly, the remit of the Committee on Health reflects that of the Federal Ministry of Health, its chief areas of activity being health insurance, long-term care insurance, medicinal drugs and pharmacology, medical devices, accident and disease prevention, health protection, combating diseases, the use of information and communication technology in the health sector, biomedicine, biotechnology, the future of the welfare state and health policy in the European and global contexts.
The text of the coalition agreement concluded by the CDU and CSU and the SPD in November 2005 states that “Germany has a modern and efficient health-care system that gives the population access to high-quality health care as well as providing work for some 4.2 million employees and self-employed persons. (…) The system of health care, however, must undergo constant development in the face of major challenges, especially demographic change and progress in medicine and medical technology. Our aims in overseeing this development are to guarantee an efficient health service that can cope with demographic change and go on providing patients with high-quality care and to ensure that the system is funded in accordance with the precepts of solidarity and the satisfaction of needs.” The translation of the government programme into specific projects and participation in that process through legislative procedures will account for a large part of the Committee’s work in this 16th electoral term. The main focal point will be the effort to safeguard the funding of the statutory health and long-term care insurance schemes. I am certain, however, that the Committee will also make regular use of its right to take up issues on its own initiative, and I shall encourage it to do so, to address matters that are important to people in this country, such as the deplorable renewed increase in the incidence of HIV/AIDS.
As the first member of my parliamentary group to chair a specialised committee, I consider it especially important to be fair and impartial in my conduct of committee business, even though policy decisions taken by a majority of my committee colleagues are quite often hard to swallow! In spite of all the substantive differences between the various parliamentary groups, I hope that we shall always be guided by the principle that health is the supreme asset and must not degenerate into a saleable commodity.
I hope you enjoy surfing our pages.
