The federal government wants to relieve those in need of care and their relatives financially – but is that enough? Two families from Rhineland-Palatinate see advantages in the reform, but also disadvantages.
Beate Masendorf is standing on the terrace of her house near Mainz. The 57-year-old bravely reaches into the laundry basket and quickly hangs up T-shirts, socks, sweaters and pants to dry. Time is running out. Her husband Frank has Alzheimer’s and has been in need of care for eight years – and that at just 64 years old. Brushing teeth, shaving, going to the toilet, going to bed, eating: the former site manager can no longer do all of this alone. Beate Masendorf can only take care of the household, the garden and the negotiations with nursing and health insurance companies in peace and quiet, if someone else is looking after her husband.
That’s just 12 hours a week. Then there are supervisors like Stefan Heyde, who takes short walks around the house with Frank Masendorf, for example. The rest of the time Beate Masendorf is on duty. The draftsman says there are days when she wonders how she got it all done. And most importantly for how long. She can hardly ever switch off anyway. She had to give up her job. She prefers not to think about what that means for her own pension.
Beate Masendorf uses the PC to find out about the care reform.
The feeling of being left alone by politics
Everything that Beate Masendorf does for her husband, she likes to do. She emphasizes that everything only works because they have good friends and a great family. The Rhineland-Palatinate woman, on the other hand, often feels left alone by politics. The care reform will not change that either: “On the one hand, it is of course good that something is finally happening. However, it is far from enough.”
What Beate Masendorf likes about the care reform is that services for short-term and respite care are combined into one budget that caregivers can use flexibly. Since her husband has the highest care level 5, she will receive 3539 euros from this pot from July 2025. With the money, she can, for example, hire a caregiver Heyde by the hour or day or, if necessary, put her husband in short-term inpatient care.
Frank Masendorf and supervisor Stefan Heyde.
The Masendorfs are already getting money for both – albeit from different pots. That often complicates things. Beate Masendorf says: “This innovation brings at least a little relief in the opaque bureaucratic jungle.” All too often caregivers do not call up money because the system is too complex and confusing.
On the other hand, the fact that the care allowance should be increased by five percent at the beginning of 2024 causes her to be incomprehensible: “I feel fooled.” Not only the costs of food and energy have increased significantly in recent times. The diapers for her husband, for example, are now three times as expensive as they used to be. The couple is currently adding up to 700 euros a month for care.
“A Dream”
Elfriede Busch sits with other residents in a nursing home in Kaiserslautern in front of a large television screen and does brain jogging. She is 90 years old and dependent on a wheelchair. She has lived in the facility for two years. She feels very comfortable in this, she says with a smile. If she knew that she was paying 2,870 euros a month for a place in the home, she would probably still want to move out immediately, says her supervisor and nephew Bernd Lenhart.
But that’s not possible, because Busch has care level 4. Lenhart says he’s gotten used to the high expenses. Nevertheless, he is pleased that his aunt will probably have to pay around 370 euros less for her place in a home from next year thanks to the care reform. That is almost a “little dream” – and leaves more financial leeway for one or the other joint activity.
Elfriede Busch with her nephew Bernd Lenhart.
“Hit in the face”
The social scientist Stefan Sell from the RheinAhrCampus Remagen at the Koblenz University of Applied Sciences cannot share this enthusiasm. Of course, the care reform brings noticeable financial improvements for people who live in homes, depending on the length of stay. For caring relatives, on the other hand, she is a slap in the face: “For years it was announced again and again that there should be more care allowance. Now people are struggling to increase this by a ridiculous five percent not this year, but only next year. Each Against the background of the current inflation rate, the union would save that as a declaration of war.”
Sell says the problem is that family caregivers don’t have a lobby. “Depending on the degree of care, they have been fobbed off for years with a sum of between 300 and 900 euros per month. There is no one who gets what is necessary for these people.”
And this despite the fact that 80 percent of the approximately five million people in need of care in Germany are cared for at home, emphasizes Sell. And home care is far cheaper than inpatient offers. Also for society. The social scientist does the math: at least a third of nursing home residents are already dependent on social assistance. Ascending trend.