The German Foundation for Patient Protection has sharply criticized the potential benefit reductions planned for home care services. Board member Eugen Brysch told the “Rheinische Post” that even the cuts mandated by the Nursing Care Ordinance Law are pushing the five million people who require care at home, and their relatives, to the brink of collapse.
Brysch stressed that the caregivers, whom politicians often laud as “everyday heroes,” should not be further weakened. He asserted that Health Minister Carsten Linnemann (CDU) seems unaware that if Germany’s largest care service falters, hundreds of thousands of people will have to be placed in nursing homes. Currently, capacity and staffing are already scarce in institutional care settings.
Brysch argues that the solutions for creating a future-proof and generationally just nursing care insurance system are obvious. First, the Federal Government must take responsibility. He demanded the repayment of the five-billion-euro COVID-19 debts and the federal assumption of the annual cost of care contributions from relatives, estimated at over five billion euros. Furthermore, he called for courage to implement constitutional solutions that merge private and statutory nursing care insurance.
Meanwhile, DIW President Marcel Fratzscher considers it feasible to achieve a ten percent reduction in the statutory care insurance expenditures, but he also demands that high earners contribute more to cover the deficit. Telling the “Rheinische Post”, Fratzscher said, “Health Minister Linnemann’s goal of saving ten percent of the care insurance expenditures is correct and realistic.”
However, the president of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) cautioned that simply demanding cuts does not equate to a reform program. He warned that the crucial element is identifying where the cuts must happen and who must be better protected. “A reform based on the ‘lawnmower principle’ would be socially and economically flawed. People with low incomes and little savings should not be the ones who lose out,” he warned. Fratzscher added that certain groups should receive significantly more support in the future.
Specifically, he pointed to roughly one million people, predominantly women, who care for relatives without receiving benefits from the nursing care insurance. Fratzscher insisted that the nursing care insurance must rely far more heavily on the principle of solidarity. “Strong shoulders must carry more than weak ones. Only this way can the additional social security costs associated with wages be limited while simultaneously securing better protection for people with low income and assets.”
This debate arose after Health Minister Linnemann had previously floated the possibility of benefit cuts, citing the strained financial situation of the care insurance system.
