It is striking how often Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) has recently complained about economic considerations in the health care system.
Both when presenting his clinic reform and now in the key issues paper on the Medicines Act, he warned that "economy" had been taken too far.
It's no secret that the Social Democrat - who was a former CDU member - is skeptical about the market.
This is most evident in his endorsement of citizen insurance.
This could herald the end of private providers, who work much more efficiently and future-proof than the statutory health insurers and contribute disproportionately to the healthcare system.
Competition is also necessary in other areas.
The lowering of drug prices through discount agreements and fixed amounts has proven its worth.
Lauterbach's plans to include local and quality requirements in the tenders so that more manufacturing takes place in Europe are correct.
But that doesn't mean you have to overturn the whole system and impose a 50 percent price surcharge on the part of the state.
In the short term, this will lead to financially weaker countries looking into the tube - as with protective masks or gas.
If you look at the hospital landscape, profit-oriented chains are often on a par with municipal providers, if not superior - the state, or more precisely the federal states, shy away from the necessary investments.
The medical care centers are not the stuff of the devil per se.
They bring skills together, enable young doctors to be employed – even part-time – and relieve them of investments.
The fact that they pick the cherries and neglect basic care is bad, but does not speak against the private approach - which is also followed by resident doctors - but reveals the wrong framework.
That's what Lauterbach should confine itself to: creating the right conditions under which private management is worthwhile for better care.
In order to master the great challenges in medicine and care, more efficiency and quality are needed.
That doesn't mean less economization, but more.