Hospital.Help

Berlin – With the sustainable stabilization of the social long-term care insurance (SPV), the future federal government faces a major challenge that must be addressed promptly. Christoph Straub, CEO of Barmer, emphasized this today during the presentation of the current Barmer care report.

With the end of the traffic light government, many legislative proposals also failed in the health sector and nursing, said Straub. Even the very short-term increase in contribution rates to prevent social care insurance from becoming insolvent is “still in danger”.

However, the increase will only help temporarily anyway – the next government will therefore have to deal “directly” with long-term care insurance. Straub emphasized that the proposed contribution rate increase of 0.2 percentage points would provide some breathing room, but would not even be enough until the end of 2025.

A sustainable financing concept must include, among other things, the immediate exemption of the social care insurance from non-insurance benefits, as stipulated in the coalition agreement of the former traffic light government.

In addition, the pandemic costs advanced by the nursing care insurance would have to be fully offset with tax revenue – this means a sum of more than five billion euros. The training cost allocation for nursing staff should also be financed from tax revenues and the SPV should be exempt from paying pension contributions for nursing relatives.

“Due to the introduction of the new concept of need for care in 2017, many people received benefits from long-term care insurance funds for the first time who had not previously had this entitlement. This significantly extended the duration of care and significantly increased the costs,” explained the author of the care report, Heinz Rothgang from the University of Bremen.

Recently deceased people in need of care claimed benefits from the care insurance funds worth an average of 50,000 euros. For those currently in need of care, these costs would be around 76,000 euros.

The use of more nursing staff in homes, better pay and also the broader definition of the need for care are politically desired and also bring about the “desired effects” – but also bring about cost increases and higher personal contributions. In order to limit this and at the same time ensure the liquidity of the nursing care insurance, the SPV would have to be provided with additional funds.

An element of tax financing appears to be “indispensable”. Rothgang also advocated financial equalization between social and private compulsory long-term care insurance. This was already provided for in a coalition agreement: the 2005 agreement between the CDU/CSU and the SPD. © aha/aerzteblatt.de