Angelina Kusterer is at the drugstore to buy care products for her mother. "We'll take our wound spray here. What's important is a powder in case she has a wetter wound." Angelina Kusterer's mother has multiple sclerosis and needs help around the clock.
Kusterer has been caring for her mother for 15 years. In the ARD documentary "Nursing relatives on the verge of exhaustion" she says that she has now given up her job and receives basic security. Her father is also increasingly dependent on help. "I would like the whole thing to finally stop. This fear: What will happen tomorrow, what will happen the day after tomorrow? And that we don't have to live at the subsistence level all the time."
Without caring relatives like Angelina Kusterer, the care system would not function. Because the vast majority of people in Germany are cared for at home - around 85 percent. This is often an enormous burden for relatives that lasts for years. And many are worried when they look at the upcoming reforms.
Health Minister Carsten Linnemann (CDU) also knows this: "These are people who are not in public every day. They work in secret and they hold our society together."
But the nursing care funds are lacking money. Next year alone, probably more than seven billion euros. “We will have to make savings,” says Linnemann. Income and expenses must be brought into balance."
What the reform should change
The law stipulates that long-term care insurance for people without children will become even more expensive and rise to 0.9 percent. In addition, the contribution assessment limit is to be raised by 300 euros, so high earners will pay more.
Various nursing care insurance benefits are to be reorganized and partially combined. Cuts are also planned in various areas. For care level 1, for example, the so-called relief contribution of up to 131 euros per month should no longer apply. Overall, it is becoming more difficult to be classified as requiring care or to receive a higher level of care.
Contrary to what was originally planned, the nursing care insurance will continue to fully cover the pension insurance amounts for caring relatives. Something that was particularly important to Minister Linnemann: "We cannot allow them to receive fewer pension points than if they worked comparatively in administration or in business." Not the only cut that was initially canceled.
“Structural financing problems” remain
However, the law is at most a kind of first aid measure for long-term care insurance. Although the Bundestag has not yet decided on it, it is already clear: it will not be enough to get the finances under control anyway.
The SPD health politician Christos Pantazis also knows this. "Against this background, we need a second law. Because: Nursing suffers from a structural financing problem and we have to address that. I make no secret of it: the Social Democrats would have done it in one go."
But the black-red government could not agree on this. And so the members of the Bundestag are discussing the first part of the care reform, while a commission of experts is developing proposals for comprehensive structural reform.
Linnemann does not rule out further cuts
Health Minister Linnemann wants to see results from the commission by the end of January. "But I don't think it's rocket science either. And then we as politicians have to have the courage to implement these things as much as possible." Given the financial concerns, Linnemann does not want to rule out the possibility that there will be further cuts in long-term care insurance.
Angelina Kusterer is already struggling with the system before further reforms. Knowing what she knows today, she says she would probably no longer care for her mother to the same extent.
