In the ongoing debate over long-term care reform, the Christian Social Union (CSU) is taking a firm stance against Federal Health Minister Nina Warken's proposals, calling for substantially higher federal funding for statutory long-term care insurance. The federal government owes the long-term care insurance system billions and must not shirk responsibility as it has with healthcare costs for basic income recipients, said Klaus Holetschek, leader of the CSU parliamentary group in Bavaria, to the Augsburger Allgemeine on Monday.
The reform of statutory health insurance is currently seeing discussions about stronger tax financing. While the federal government supports health insurance funds with healthcare costs for recipients of basic income (formerly Bürgergeld), it only covers part of these expenses.
The solidarity community of statutory health insurance co-pays, burdening the system with up to twelve billion euros annually. Therefore, there are demands for a larger portion to be financed from tax revenues. However, the federal government is facing budget constraints.
"What we saw with the statutory health insurance reform must not happen with long-term care insurance: cutting subsidies to consolidate the budget while contribution payers are supposed to fill the gaps," Holetschek said. In long-term care insurance, billions in non-insurance-related benefits have accumulated, including pandemic-related additional expenditures that "have no place" in the system, criticized the former Bavarian health minister.
"Reimbursing the pandemic-related additional expenditures of 5.5 billion euros, which is a one-time amount, would be an important first step and signal," Holetschek demanded. "If we can create special funds for defense and infrastructure and mobilize hundreds of billions, no one can explain why there should be no money specifically for nursing care."
Federal Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) plans to present a draft law for long-term care reform by mid-May. This threatens significant additional costs for people requiring care in nursing homes, as well as more difficult access to long-term care insurance benefits generally. In this context, Warken pointed out over the weekend to an expected deficit in long-term care insurance for 2027 and 2028, which she estimated at a combined 22.5 billion euros, higher than initially expected.
The president of the German Red Cross, Hermann Gröhe, called on federal states to fulfill their investment funding obligations for residential care more strongly than before. "Many states are insufficiently meeting their responsibility to cover costs including construction, maintenance, and equipment of care facilities," Gröhe told the Augsburger Allgemeine.
"The consequence is that out-of-pocket costs for people requiring care continue to rise, because they then indirectly also have to cover investment costs."
The states could dampen rising costs through higher funding for investment costs, said the former Federal Health Minister and current German Red Cross chief. "This would often reduce the personal contributions of people requiring care by several hundred euros."
Holetschek stated that Bavaria pays above-average amounts for investment funding. "Bavaria is one of the federal states that most strongly finances the investment costs of nursing homes and thus also makes an important contribution to the costs of nursing homes for people requiring care."
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