Federal Health Minister Nina Warken's (CDU) proposals for long term care reform continue to draw criticism. Calls for fundamental revisions also came from within the SPD. The minister reaffirmed her intention to generally require children of those requiring nursing care to contribute to their care home costs.
Magnus Jung, Health Minister of Saarland and a senior SPD figure, has called for a mandatory ceiling on out-of-pocket care costs for nursing home residents. Speaking to the Rheinische Post, Jung argued that such a cap was essential for giving people genuine financial certainty when planning for old age. He described Minister Warken's reform proposals as a course of social welfare dismantlement, signalling deep unease within the governing coalition over the direction of the legislation.
The intra-party dissent grew sharper when Lars Düsterhoft, the SPD's care policy expert in Berlin's state parliament, characterised Warken's austerity-driven approach as an incremental move toward abolishing the care insurance system altogether.
In remarks to Berlin's Tagesspiegel, he went so far as to say that anyone within the SPD who endorsed the federal government's current path did not belong in the party. His comments were particularly pointed given that Warken's ministry had previously indicated the draft legislation had been coordinated with the SPD's federal leadership.
At the centre of the reform dispute is Minister Warken's intention to reintroduce financial obligations for adult children whose parents reside in care homes. Currently, children are shielded from such costs unless their own annual income exceeds 100,000 euros, a threshold introduced in 2019 specifically to reduce anxiety among families considering residential care for elderly relatives.
Warken has justified revisiting this income threshold by pointing to strained public finances at all levels of government. Writing in the Rheinische Post, she stated that local municipalities urgently need relief from the costs of so-called "assistance for care" (Hilfe zur Pflege), and that provisions granted during more financially comfortable times must now be re-examined.
The 100,000-euro income exemption was not introduced arbitrarily. Prior to its enactment, the system produced notable inequities: only the personal income of the adult child was assessed, while household income, including that of a high-earning spouse or partner, was not taken into account.
This meant that individuals with modest personal salaries but affluent household circumstances were largely exempt, while those with lower combined household incomes were nonetheless required to contribute toward parental care costs.
Warken's proposed change to this threshold is not part of the core care insurance reform bill currently being drafted. It would require separate legislation, making it politically and procedurally distinct from the broader reform package.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) offered his backing to Warken during a CDU regional party conference in Linstow, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, though he stopped short of addressing the specific controversies surrounding her proposals. He acknowledged public concern about planned cuts to health and care spending but maintained that the government was obliged to make difficult but necessary decisions.
The Greens entered the debate at a party social policy conference in Eberswalde, where parliamentary group leader Britta Haßelmann argued that the very people who shoulder the greatest share of informal and unpaid care work should not simultaneously face increased financial penalties. Her remarks pointed to the particular vulnerability of family caregivers who already carry significant personal and economic costs.
BSW politician Sahra Wagenknecht issued some of the harshest criticism, warning that if children with low and middle incomes, and potentially their family homes, were drawn into liability for parental care costs, the reform would effectively function as a programme of forced asset seizure.
She highlighted that residents of eastern Germany would be disproportionately affected, given that average personal savings and property values there remain lower than in the west. Invoking the approaching summer, Wagenknecht warned of what she called a "summer of social cruelties" under Chancellor Merz.
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