Karl Wilhelm Lauterbach (; born 21 February 1963) is a German scientist, physician, and politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), who has served as Federal Minister of Health since 8 December 2021. He is professor of health economics and epidemiology at the University of Cologne (on leave since 2005). Since 2005 German federal election, he has been a member of the Bundestag (the German parliament).
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, his name became well known through his frequent appearances on television talk shows as an invited guest expert, along with his frequent use of Twitter to provide commentary about the ongoing pandemic.
Education and career
Lauterbach studied human medicine at the RWTH Aachen University, University of Texas at San Antonio and University of Düsseldorf, where he graduated. From 1989 to 1992, he studied health policy and management as well as epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, graduating with a Doctor of Science in 1992. From 1992 to 1993, he held a fellowship at the Harvard Medical School, sponsored by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, which is close to the CDU. Lauterbach was a CDU member for several years before joining the SPD in 2001.
From 1998 until 2005, Lauterbach served as the director of the Institute of Health Economics and Clinical Epidemiology (IGKE) at the University of Cologne, and was subsequently on leave from that role due to his tenure in the Bundestag. He was appointed adjunct professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2008. He was a member of the Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der Entwicklung im Gesundheitswesen (the council of experts advising the federal government on developments in the German healthcare system) from 1999 until he was elected to the Bundestag in September 2005. He was a member of the Rürup Commission, a government-appointed committee of experts that was established to review the financing of the social insurance systems.
Political career
In the majority (16th) Bundestag and in opposition (17th Bundestag) Lauterbach made his entry to the Bundestag with a direct mandate by winning in his electoral district Leverkusen – Cologne IV at the 2005 federal elections. He was part of the governing coalition until 2009, when his party went into opposition. Between 2005 and 2013, he served on the Health Committee. Within the SPD parliamentary group, Lauterbach belongs to the Parliamentary Left, a left-wing movement.
Shadow Minister of Health (18th and 19th Bundestag) Ahead of the 2013 federal elections, Peer Steinbrück included Lauterbach in his shadow cabinet for the SPD's campaign to unseat incumbent Chancellor Angela Merkel. During the campaign, he served as shadow minister of health. In the negotiations to form a government following the elections, he led the SPD delegation in the health working group and his co-chair from the CDU/CSU was Jens Spahn. From 2013 until 2019, he served as deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group under the leadership of successive chairpersons Thomas Oppermann (2013–2017) and Andrea Nahles (2017–2019).
Appointed by Federal Minister of Health Hermann Gröhe, Lauterbach served as member of an expert commission on the reform of Germany's hospital care from 2015 until 2017. From 2018 until 2019, he chaired an expert commission advising Mayor of Berlin Michael Müller on strategies for the city's health sector.
2019 SPD leadership bid
In the 2019 SPD leadership election, Lauterbach announced his intention to run for the position as the party's co-chair, together with Nina Scheer. He has since been serving on the German Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection and its Subcommittee on European Law.