Berlin/Dresden. The CDU is pushing for a fundamental reform of long-term care insurance. The current partial comprehensive insurance will be converted into a federally financed comprehensive insurance that fully covers the costs of care. The Saxon State Chancellery confirmed a corresponding report in the newspaper “Die Welt” and spoke of an East-West newspaper, because the concept originates from Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia. The background is the sharp rise in care costs. By the way every third person in need of care receives social assistance because your pension is not enough to cover the costs of care, it was said.
Care costs create social issues
“In Saxony it is even more than one in three. Pensions with an average of 1,200 to 1,400 euros are offset by care costs of 3,000 euros per month. Those who need it will receive automatically becomes a social case“, “Die Welt” quoted Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU): “North Rhine-Westphalia’s Social Minister Karl-Josef Laumann and I have therefore developed a concept for a system change, towards a comprehensive insurance that completely covers the costs related to care.” According to calculations by the Berlin IGES Institute – a research and consulting institute for infrastructure and health issues – around 16.5 billion euros would be needed in the example year 2026, which the federal government should cover.
Relief of almost nine billion euros?
According to the information, people in need of care and their families could receive relief of a total of 8.9 billion euros. This is the amount that those affected have to cover annually for healthcare-related costs from their own contributions. “People in need of care and their families would then only have to cover costs that are not directly related to care,” explained Kretschmer. According to the CDU concept, these mainly include investment, operating and food costs. “If taxpayers want to protect themselves against these costs, they should in future be able to voluntarily take out affordable supplementary care insurance that covers their scope,” the newspaper quoted in the reform document.
The associations of health and nursing insurers have been demanding for some time that the federal government relieve them of the costs of non-insurance services. For example, nursing care funds pay the pension contributions for family carers. According to the cash register, this alone amounts to 3.6 billion euros per year. (dpa/af)