The SPD Minister of Health wants to secure the liquidity of the long-term care insurance until the summer.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) wants to avert higher contributions in the coming year with a subsidy for social long-term care insurance in the amount of one billion euros. This emerges from a draft bill that became known on Thursday. The subsidy from federal funds is also intended to prevent the long-term care insurance funds from falling below their statutory reserve limits.
The reason for the deficit is the additional expenditure in nursing homes caused by the pandemic, which had to be borne by the social nursing care insurance. This includes expenses for hygiene, personnel and organizational measures.
In April, the long-term care insurance funds received 1.2 billion euros from the federal government, plus a regular subsidy of one billion euros and a loan of the same amount in August. Without the cash injections, nursing care insurance contributions would in all probability have had to increase in 2023. They are currently 3.05 percentage points for insured persons with children and 3.4 percentage points for those without children.
Meanwhile, health insurance companies are asking for more help. Although the subsidies could “avoid the imminent insolvency of social long-term care insurance this year,” said the chairwoman of the AOK federal association, Carola Reimann, on Thursday.
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However, the grant that has now been approved is not enough. Long-term care insurance must “finally be financed sustainably, because people in need of care and caregivers need more security”. The federal government is postponing the problems to the future. “The gap between income and expenditure is dangerously wide,” said Reimann. “And the loan at the expense of the contributors has to be repaid in the coming year.”
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Reimann therefore called for, among other things, to suspend the annual payments in the care provision fund of currently 1.6 billion euros. This saves 0.1 percentage points of the nursing care insurance contributions per year in order to mitigate the burden of contributions in the future.
Care Council warns of a lack of care
Meanwhile, representatives of the care industry again warned of increasingly tense conditions in the care sector. “If the required political support does not come, nursing care will no longer be sufficient in the future,” said the President of the German Nursing Council, Christine Vogler, on Thursday at the start of the German Nursing Day in Berlin.
At the annual association meeting, representatives of the industry and experts discuss the current challenges in the care sector. As an umbrella organization, the Nursing Council represents various nursing associations.
The lack of staff is repeatedly cited as the biggest problem, and this is likely to get worse as the population ages. The baby boomers are now trying to accommodate their parents in the homes or to take care of themselves, Vogler said. “We will get a massive increase in the need for care.” The care council called for better working conditions, training and career paths and more say for care workers to ensure.
More: Those with long-term care insurance are threatened with a cost shock – what contributors are facing