Almost two weeks after it was set up by the federal government, the âCare Structure Commissionâ officially begins its work today. The task for the expert committee: to develop proposals for a long-term reform in order to make care affordable in the future without sharply increasing contributions. The most important questions about the Commission at a glance.
Who sits on the commission?
The committee consists of 13 experts. The chair will be taken over by Prof. Dr. Georg Cremer, the former Secretary General of the German Caritas Association, and Prof. Gabriele Kuhn-Zuber, President of the Catholic University of Social Affairs Berlin.
The committee also includes Prof. Dr. Christine Arentz, Michaela Evans-Borchers, JĂŒrgen Graalmann, Prof. Dr. Martina Hasseler, Prof. Dr. Dörte Heger, Prof. Dr. Stefan Huster, Prof. Dr. Thorsten Kingreen, Hans-Dieter Nolting, Prof. Dr. Heinz Rothgang, Prof. Dr. Gregor ThĂŒsing and Rita Zöllner.
The composition brings together different professional perspectives on care, health, financing and social law.
There is already an agreement on reform, why the Commission now?
The black-red federal cabinet agreed on the so-called Care Reorganization Act at the end of September. But the reform that is intended to be made possible by this law should initially help to secure the financing of long-term care insurance in the short term. The planned measures are intended to plug the insurance company's financial gap of around eight billion euros, which is expected next year.
The commission should now draw up proposals for a âmajor structural reformâ in order to âensure good nursing care and keep the contribution rate for social nursing care insurance stable until the years after 2030,â as Federal Health Minister Carsten Linnemann put it.
What are the sticking points?
On the one hand, of course, it's about money. The experts should present concrete proposals for short, medium and long-term solutions to secure the financing of long-term care insurance. It's not just about the amount of contributions, but also about how benefits can be designed more precisely. In addition, the committee should examine how the expenditure of social long-term care insurance and private compulsory long-term care insurance is developing and which services are causing expenditure to rise particularly sharply.
But the commission's work should go beyond the question of financial viability. Their members should also discuss how prevention measures could be strengthened. Home care should also be strengthened. This includes, among other things, the compatibility of care and work as well as the special needs of young people in need of care and people with disabilities.
The SPD in particular had recently announced improvements in the area of ââcare despite the joint resolution with the Union on the Care Reorganization Act. Above all, it pushes for a social balance between statutory and private long-term care insurance and for a limit on the personal contributions to be paid by those in need of care or their relatives. The SPD had proposed a so-called care cap for this, but this was blocked by the CDU. The commission should now examine whether and how the own contributions can be limited. Models for social compensation mechanisms within and outside of the two long-term care insurance systems should also be examined.
By when should the proposals be available?
The expert committee doesn't have much time left. The Commission should present its proposals by the end of January 2027 at the latest. The aim of the black-red coalition is to get the comprehensive care reform based on these proposals underway as quickly as possible so that it can come into force on July 1, 2027.
Why is there already criticism of the Commission?
After it became known who would sit on the commission, criticism was voiced from several nursing associations. The reason: From the perspective of the associations, active care is not sufficiently represented in the committee, as ARD correspondent Katrin Aue reports. For example, the Mittelbaden Nursing Alliance had denounced that the commission consisted of economists and lawyers. The German Nursing Council âas the professional political representation of nursingâ has not even been asked to work on the commission.
