The President of the Federal Social Court (BSG), Rainer Schlegel, is in favor of unvaccinated corona patients sharing an appropriate amount in the costs of their treatment in the hospital.

"It always depends on the individual circumstances, but it should also hurt the insured person," said Schlegel on Tuesday at the annual press conference of the Federal Court in Kassel, which took place as a video conference due to the pandemic.

He himself would support such a participation, said Germany's highest social judge when asked.

"We talk a lot about solidarity, but it's not a one-way street."

Marcus Young

Editor in Business.

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Before that, Schlegel spoke about the high costs for the healthcare system caused by the corona pandemic.

Looking at the data from hospitals available to him, he estimated this for an average of ten days of treatment in an intensive care unit including ventilation at a corridor of 60,000 to 200,000 euros.

34 years pay contributions

"For just one such corona patient, an employee with an average income and his employer have to pay contributions for around 34 years," Schlegel calculated and thus urgently campaigned for a vaccination.

Unfortunately, this idea of ​​avoiding consequential economic costs "does not play any role at all" in the public debate, the BSG President regretted.

Schlegel, who is himself a CDU member, was critical of the suspension of compulsory vaccinations for employees in the health and care sector announced by Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) at the beginning of the week.

Such a process is "inadmissible", because a law that has already been promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette cannot be suspended again so easily, stressed Schlegel.

Nevertheless, he still sees a lot of need for clarification on the administrative and social courts, after all there are still many uncertainties.

Lots of confusion for the unvaccinated

In his opinion, unvaccinated nursing staff are threatened with a blocking period of several months for unemployment benefit I if they are released. In the Federal Ministry of Labor and the Federal Employment Agency, on the other hand, there is no blocking period, Schlegel pointed out the dissent.

The motto of his lecture was “The whole republic is a construction site”, but Schlegel took this as an opportunity to look at the state of his court.

In addition to investing millions in security technology and the electronic court files for all twelve senates, there have been numerous personnel changes in the recent past.

Schlegel proudly pointed out that from April onwards there will be parity between men and women within the judiciary.

For the first time in the history of the BSG, the majority of the senates will then also be headed by presiding judges.