Berlin. The SPD is opposing health minister Carsten Linnemann's (CDU) reform plans for nursing care. A few days before the announced cabinet appointment, SPD General Secretary Tim Klüssendorf announced resistance, thereby shaking up the new department head's timetable. The planned care reorganization threatens “massive cuts,” warns Klüssendorf. “We won’t allow that.” For millions of people, the dispute is also about how much they will have to pay for care in the future.
With the draft law, which is to be passed in the cabinet on Wednesday, Linnemann primarily wants to ensure a stabilization of the precarious finances of the nursing care insurance. According to him, a previously planned 3.2 billion euro financial injection from the federal government for care this year will not be enough. In general, Linnemann wants to “do everything to keep contributions in check,” he said in the government survey on Wednesday.
For the SPD, “a lot is at stake,” said Klüssendorf. Benefit cuts would not be accepted. The costs of care should not financially overwhelm people and their families. “If we, the SPD, have our way, then we want to noticeably relieve the burden on those in need of care in the future.”
Klüssendorf calls for a “fair financial balance” between private and statutory nursing care insurance. Above all, he refers to the suggestion of a care cover. For years there has been a proposal to cap the galloping personal contributions of those in need of care in the home. Now Klüssendorf is insisting on such an upper limit. The SPD health expert in the Bundestag, Christos Pantazis, also demands: “We need an effective limit on personal financial contributions.”
Saarland's SPD Prime Minister Anke Rehlinger wants a limit of 1,500 euros. The then Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) had already described it as important to “introduce a care cap that caps the costs of care for users”.
In the first year in the home, as of July, an average of 3,364 euros per month has to be paid out of pocket for a place, according to the replacement insurance companies. That is 119 euros more than at the beginning of the year and 256 euros more than in July 2025 for pure care. The reason for the rising costs is primarily higher personnel expenses, because nursing staff are urgently needed and their pay has improved in recent years. Payments for, among other things, accommodation and meals, which are also becoming more expensive, are added. An average of 1,086 euros per month is now due, which is 50 euros more than on July 1, 2025.
The current head of the Chancellery, Nina Warken (CDU), from whom Linnemann took over the health department, had presented plans that were primarily about savings. Savings should also be made on relief surcharges that are available from the nursing care insurance fund. The timescales for the relief amounts should be extended; These amounts for those affected increase with the length of time in the home. Warken had prepared the upcoming care reform in a federal-state working group. Associations such as consumer advice centers, the Greens and the Left have already sharply criticized the plans.
The board of the German Patient Protection Foundation, Eugen Brysch, says: “It is good that the SPD is now pulling the ripcord on the planned nursing care legislation.” Brysch also sees Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD) as having an obligation to reimburse the nursing care funds, among other things, billions in funds from the Corona period - and for the federal states to bear training and investment costs.
Linnemann wanted to reach the cabinet “in September” with the reform, he said at the beginning of the month. After the lost elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, Chancellor and CDU leader Friedrich Merz issued the general slogan: “The reforms must come.” When it comes to care, the pressure to act is great. According to the nursing care insurance companies, she is “acutely in need.” The municipalities, which step in when residents cannot pay the costs of the home, are also groaning under rising costs. In the Bundestag, Linnemann said billions would have to be saved next year. SPD expert Pantazis also says that action needs to be taken, “there is no question about it”.
Warken's draft was also attacked because of planned restrictions on free co-insurance for spouses and stricter classifications in care levels. Linnemann has now made it clear that there will be no pension cuts for caring relatives. The further negotiations leading up to a reform resolution in the Bundestag are likely to remain exciting.
But there are also far-reaching plans and demands for later. Linnemann wants to set up a commission of experts for structural reform next year. The SPD is promoting citizens’ insurance: Pantazis points to the goal of a “common, solidarity-financed insurance system”.
