In view of the rising costs for millions of people in need of care and their families, the government wants to take countermeasures and strengthen the entire financial basis. Health Minister Lauterbach lacks the support of health insurance companies for his plans.
Health Minister Karl Lauterbach wants to create more relief for those in need of care with a care reform, which also means higher contributions. The plans are met with massive resistance from statutory health insurance companies. In a statement made available to the editorial network Germany, the leading association of statutory health insurance companies criticized the draft of the "Care Support and Relief Act" as "completely inadequate".
The attempt to compensate for the increased care costs for people in need of care and their relatives "must be assessed as too short-sighted," it continues. The association also doubts whether the planned increase in contributions from 3.05 to 3.4 percent will be sufficient to securely finance long-term care insurance until the end of the 2025 election period.
The association writes that there are conflicting priorities within the governing coalition. Therefore, a situation arises in which an entire branch of social security in terms of financial structure can no longer adequately fulfill its mandate to secure a central life risk - in this case the risk of the need for care. "This cannot be disguised by credit-financed bridging of missing income," it continues.
Above all, the association criticizes the insufficient increase in benefits for people cared for at home in view of the inflation. According to the health insurers, the planned limitation of the dynamization to 5 percent does not sufficiently reflect the real price developments. They also criticize the fact that, despite corresponding agreements in the coalition agreement, no subsidies from the federal budget are planned for the pension contributions of caregiving relatives or for additional expenses caused by the pandemic. The cash registers complain that these are "originally state tasks" that have to be paid for with tax money.
For the current year, the reform will achieve "stabilization of the tense financial situation," the association continues. "From the point of view of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, it is by no means certain whether it will be able to stabilize the social long-term care insurance financially until the end of the legislative period," warn the health insurers. The FDP and CSU had previously criticized the draft law.
