Health
SPD and Greens want improvements in care reform
A nurse applies a compression bandage in outpatient care. photo
© Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
Rising costs for care burden millions of people in need of care and their families. The government wants to take countermeasures with a reform, but the plans so far are not sufficient for all partners.
In the traffic light coalition, the SPD and the Greens are putting pressure on improvements to the planned relief for those in need of care. Green parliamentary group deputy Maria Klein-Schmeink said on Wednesday in Berlin with a view to the draft tabled by the cabinet: “It can’t stay the way it is now.” In the foreground are improvements in outpatient care and care at home. The SPD health expert Heike Baehrens also emphasized that her parliamentary group would emphatically advocate further improvements for those who are cared for and cared for at home. The coalition will bring the draft to Parliament this Thursday.
The Greens are pushing for support from Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) as they proceed. Klein-Schmeink emphasized that necessary additions would only be possible if the chancellor backed him up. She made it clear that the plans in the deliberations on the intervention of Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had been slimmed down more and more. At the same time, she pointed out further agreements in the coalition agreement. Among other things, the current plans to raise the care allowance for those in need of care at home, which was last increased in 2017, by five percent as of January 1, 2024 are in view for improvements. This increase had been widely criticized as insufficient.
SPD expert Baehrens told the German Press Agency: “Caring relatives in particular urgently need more relief and more flexibility when using services.” Overall, the law will financially stabilize long-term care insurance and implement a Federal Constitutional Court order with little bureaucracy to better consider families with several children in the contributions.
The legislative plans of Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) provide for relief for those in need of care, but also for higher contributions – except for families with several younger children. In order to stabilize the finances of the long-term care insurance for the time being until 2025, the long-term care contribution is to be increased by 0.35 percentage points on July 1st – even more for people without children. People in need of care at home and in the home should get more money in 2024.