The Union and the SPD started the new week with a dispute over the planned care reform. Health Minister Carsten Linnemann actually wanted to bring his plans to the black-red cabinet on Wednesday.
However, the SPD threatened to block Linnemann's austerity plans. Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) actually wanted to speed up reforms after the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, which were partly disastrous for the governing parties.
According to media reports, the coalition is expecting internal crisis talks today. According to “Bild”, a Merz spokesman spoke of “negotiations at working level”. Linnemann said on the ARD program “Report from Berlin” about the dispute: “This is nothing unusual.”
He pointed out that the most recent reform of statutory health insurance had only been agreed upon two hours before the cabinet discussion. At the same time, he criticized: “You should do something like that behind closed doors and not in front of the door.”
Two concrete demands from the SPD
SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch had said: “The SPD parliamentary group will not go along with a pure cuts package.” The necessary structural reforms were missing. That could and must change. The SPD put forward two specific demands: a “fair contribution” from those with private insurance, as Miersch called it, and a care cap, which is intended to counteract the ever-increasing amount of personal contributions for those affected and their relatives for a place in the home. However, Linnemann rejected a care cover. “We wouldn’t solve the problem,” he said on ARD.
The SPD is campaigning for a care cap of 1,500 euros in retirement homes. “That can be discussed,” said Linnemann. But it would only save 300 euros of the pure care costs of 1,800 euros. The total personal contribution is currently between 3,000 and 4,000 euros. “We wouldn’t solve the problem.” It takes more than just a band-aid. Nursing care insurance is structurally underfunded, with around ten percent of annual expenditure missing. That's around ten billion euros. The system has to make do with the income. The goal must be to keep the monthly contributions for care and the entire health system stable.
CDU wing warns of “austerity law” – Greens disappointed with coalition
The head of the CDU employee wing (CDA), Dennis Radtke, called for fundamental change on the issue of care reform. “The care reform must not simply become another austerity law,” he told the Germany editorial network. “We need real structural changes so that people can continue to rely on the system in the future.”
Radtke demanded that “non-insurance benefits in particular” need to be “taken into account”. “Unfortunately, there was a lack of courage for this with the health care reform, even though this has been years overdue,” he said.
Union parliamentary group vice-president Albert Stegemann (CDU) accused the SPD of not helping to solve problems. “Anyone who answers every reform debate from the outset by excluding changes does not contribute to solving the problems, but rather makes it more difficult for generation-appropriate and long-term sustainable stabilization of long-term care insurance,” Stegemann told the “Rheinische Post”.
Green party leader Britta Haßelmann was disappointed with the black-red federal government. She told the "Rheinische Post": "I had hoped that the coalition would finally go in one direction and find a common compass. Instead, the arguments continue."
She warned of rising costs for contributors and called for the burden to be distributed fairly. “A good care reform does not cut corners on those who rely on care or who provide care,” she said. This also includes limiting the increasing personal contributions in inpatient long-term care instead of asking those in need of care to pay more and more.
