Coalition discusses care reform: CDU social politician criticizes the SPD's “expensive wishes”.

The deputy CDU chairman Karl-Josef Laumann has no understanding of the SPD's current demands in the care dispute. “As far as I know the SPD’s wishes, they all cost a lot of money,” said Laumann, who is Minister for Labor, Health and Social Affairs in North Rhine-Westphalia, on Deutschlandfunk. “And the money isn’t there at all. On the contrary, we have to see where we can save money on nursing care insurance.”

This is about austerity laws that are necessary in order to prevent the overall burden of social security contributions from rising further. Saving always means that something doesn't change for the better, that's the nature of things, said Laumann. The alternative is further increases in contributions.

Federal Health Minister Carsten Linnemann (CDU) wants to present a bill to the cabinet this Wednesday to prevent an impending billion-dollar deficit in statutory nursing care insurance and higher contributions. The nursing care funds had warned of a loss of 4.4 billion euros by the end of the year. At the weekend, the SPD threatened to block a pure austerity law. Specifically, the Social Democrats are calling for a cap on care costs for those cared for in homes and for private individuals to contribute to the costs of statutory care insurance.

Laumann supported Linnemann's demand that the Federal Ministry of Finance should pay back more than five billion euros in Corona aid to the nursing care insurance. “I am also of the firm opinion that the so-called Corona aid – that is between five and six billion euros – must now be put back into the pot in order to achieve part of the savings.”

Regarding the question of private costs sharing in statutory nursing care insurance, Laumann said that one would then have to ask the fundamental question of whether one wanted to abolish the dual system of statutory and private insurance. “As far as I can tell, this dipping into the cash of private nursing care insurance is also very difficult from a legal point of view.” He doesn't know whether that will save the matter. Up to now there has always been a great consensus that we don't want to destroy the dual system.

On the subject of giving preference to private patients when making medical appointments, Laumann said that Germany needs better patient management overall. This can be seen from the fact that there are a billion doctor-patient contacts every year in Germany. “This doesn’t exist in any other country, even a comparable country.” This better patient control must then also apply to private patients.