The Federal Joint Committee in the German health system. Political accountability deficit caused by a decoupled government institution?

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - Political Systems - Germany, grade: 1.7, University of Potsdam (Lehrstuhl für Verwaltung und Organisation I), course: Accountability, democracy, and management in the welfare state, language: English, abstract: The leading question in this paper is if one specific structural reform output in the German health system, concrete the institutionalization of the Federal Joint Committee according to the SHI Modernization Act (GKV- Modernisierungsgesetz/GMG) in the beginning of 2004, is an example for building a quasi-governmental institution with limited external political accountability relations which causes an political accountability deficit. This paper is grounded on the content and theoretical focus of the seminar Accountability, democracy and management in the welfare state, which I attended at the University Potsdam in summer semester 2014. It deals with the issue of using a couple of premises from the academic field of accountability to analyze one specific output of a reform in the German health care system in relation to the founding and the work of the Federal Joint Committee (Gemeinsamer Bundesauschuss/ G-BA) since 2004.