German Health Minister Nina Warken (CDU) defends her savings plans to stabilize long-term care insurance. “This is not a reform that a health minister would wish for, because it involves unavoidable hardships in parts,” the CDU politician wrote in a guest article for “Welt am Sonntag.” “But this reform is absolutely necessary to adapt another pillar of our social system to the conditions of our time.”
Long-term care insurance is “a predictable case for restructuring,” Warken warned. She pointed to the expected funding gap of 7.5 billion euros next year. “A financial deficit of this magnitude cannot be closed solely by expanding the revenue side.”
The minister has presented a draft with spending brakes and additional revenues to avoid general contribution increases. Among other things, the care contribution for childless people is to rise from 4.2 to 4.3 percent. Conditions for classification into care levels are to become stricter.
“In 2016, contributions to pension insurance were paid for around 400,000 caring relatives; in 2024, already for 1.6 million people,” Warken stated. “Expenditures rose from less than one billion euros to around five billion euros in the same period.”
Source: Stadt München
