Berlin. The Union and the SPD are entering the new week with a serious dispute over the planned care reform. Health Minister Carsten Linnemann (CDU) rejected the SPD's demand for a "care cap" in the ARD "Report from Berlin". The SPD had previously threatened to block Linnemann's austerity plans, which the new department head wants to bring to the cabinet this Wednesday. Just one week after the state elections in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin, which were devastating for the governing parties, the coalition's reform engine is stalling again.
After the polling stations closed, Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) said, with a view to the planned social reforms, that the decisions could not be postponed but had to come. But SPD parliamentary group leader Matthias Miersch said in “Bild” at the weekend about the nursing care reform: “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 coalition is expected to hold internal crisis talks on Monday, it was said. According to the “Bild” newspaper, a Merz spokesman spoke of “negotiations at working level”. Linnemann said on ARD 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.”
Linnemann assured: “Nobody wants cuts.” He recalled that the nursing care insurance loaned the state five billion euros during the corona pandemic. “At that time there was a promise that the money would come back, the so-called Corona aid,” said Linnemann. “If the money now comes back from the Ministry of Finance, for example, we would have more leeway than we have today,” said Linnemann to SPD Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil.
Miersch, Schmidt and Secretary General Tim Klüssendorf emphasize the goal of a kind of citizens' insurance in care. Private nursing care insurance has a structurally more favorable insured structure, explained SPD parliamentary group vice-president Dagmar Schmidt. “That’s why we want a common solidarity system or at least a fair financial balance between private and social care insurance,” Schmidt told the dpa.
CSU regional group leader Alexander Hoffmann rejects “interference with private nursing care insurance,” as he told the “Augsburger Allgemeine.” Hoffmann sent the warning to his coalition partner: “The care reform must come and come into force at the turn of the year.” People would have to be protected from excessive burdens and at the same time the non-wage costs would have to be kept stable.
The required care cap is intended to counteract the ever-increasing amount of personal contributions for a place in the home. The cost of care should be limited to 1,500 euros, as Saar Health Minister Magnus Jung (SPD) wrote to his state colleagues. The letter is available to the dpa.
Overall, the costs for a place in a home for those affected or relatives rose to an average of 3,364 euros per month by July. The pure care costs amount to an average of 1,775 euros, and in some federal states over 2,000 euros. With the proposed 1,500 euro cap, a few hundred euros would be saved on this item. However, there are additional costs for accommodation and meals as well as investments, which today are an average of 1,607 euros. In the next expansion stage, the SPD plans to provide greater relief.
Linnemann confirmed his plan, according to which structural reforms should only be discussed in a commission in October after the law that has now been announced. First aid should now be provided so that those in need of care continue to receive their benefits and the contributions remain stable.
For Lower Saxony's Prime Minister Olaf Lies (SPD), however, reforms are “necessary”. “But first and foremost it must be about reforming the structures - and not about cutting services and increasing burdens.” Lies also warned of increasing costs for the municipalities that would step in if necessary to help with care as their own costs increase.
A draft from the current Chancellor Nina Warken (CDU), from whom Linnemann took over the health department, is currently public from the Ministry of Health. In the case of personal contributions, the levels of relief surcharges to those affected should be extended over time. Restrictions on free co-insurance for spouses and a stricter classification into care levels were also planned.
The nursing care funds warned the SPD not to block the nursing care reform. “Not acting would be fatal,” said the head of the National Association of Health Insurance Funds, Oliver Blatt, to the dpa. “There is a red alert in nursing.” By the end of the year, a deficit of 4.4 billion euros will accumulate. “In just a few months the money will simply run out.”
