Agreement on care reform: Above all, a savings law

It was a negotiating marathon between the Union and the SPD, as is usually the case in collective bargaining. What has now emerged is a bill that essentially changes nothing: the nursing care funds will save billions of euros in the next few years and it will be more expensive for those in need of care and their families. The assessments are becoming stricter and help for the lowest level of care is no longer available.

Compared to the original draft from the Federal Ministry of Health, the current draft law on care is watered down, but distribution issues will not be addressed and will instead be postponed to a future “commission”. This concerns, for example, the SPD proposal to involve those insured in private health insurance companies in a kind of financial equalization with those insured by law.

The private funds have higher-earning and healthier people among their members, including many civil servants, and therefore need less care in old age, and therefore have to pay less money for their care than the statutory funds. These have statistically sicker and more frail members. Creating financial equalization here would be legally difficult, but fair. However, such a balance is aimed at the epicenter of all distribution issues, which is the middle class milieu.

The taz is an independent, left-wing and opinionated daily newspaper. We have been arguing in our comments, essays and debate texts since the taz was founded in 1979. We often cannot and do not want to agree on an opinion. That's why you'll find some completely opposing positions here - all part of the very broad left-wing spectrum of opinions.

There are also other sensitive questions at this epicenter: once again, childless people should pay higher contributions in order to relieve the burden on the care insurance funds. Is that fair?

Such questions have the potential to incite incitement and as a politician you can make yourself very unpopular with these debates. But perhaps more acceptance could be achieved if cuts were always aimed at in step with redistribution elements, for example with financial equalization between the health insurance systems, with more tax resources in the nursing care fund. Consolidations of social security funds can only be achieved through a combination of unreasonable demands and redistributions. Unfortunately, the nursing care reform does not provide for such a combination.