Long-term care insurance is groaning under rising costs and the increasing number of people in need of help. Minister of Health Lauterbach is now taking countermeasures and wants to increase social security contributions in the middle of the year. Funds and Diakonie criticize the passing on to the insured
Employees and employers will face an increase in social security contributions on July 1st. You help nursing care insurance to generate additional income of around 6.6 billion euros. This is what the draft law by Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) envisages. The Greens promptly raised an objection and demanded that the federal government reimburse the long-term care insurance fund for non-insurance-related expenses. You see Finance Minister Christian Lindner as responsible. “That would avoid this significant jump in contributions to long-term care insurance,” said Green Party leader Maria Klein-Schmeink to the editorial network Germany. Criticism also came from the Central Association of Statutory Health Insurance (GKV).
According to the draft, the general contribution rate for care should increase by 0.35 points to 3.4 percent of gross wages. For employees without children, the total contribution increases even more to 4.0 percent, since the childless supplement is also to increase by 0.25 points to 0.6 percent. For parents, on the other hand, the contribution will be reduced by up to 0.6 percentage points from the second child onwards, depending on the number of children. This is intended to take into account a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court in April 2022 to give greater consideration to the effort involved in bringing up children.
At the same time, however, the many of the approximately 4.9 million people in need of care have been dealing with increasing costs for years. Inflation has recently exacerbated the situation. And in the aging society, there will foreseeably be more people in need of care. The government is currently voting on the legislative plans, as a spokesman for the Ministry of Health said.
According to the draft, the increase in the contribution rate by 0.35 points will bring the long-term care insurance funds additional income of 3.15 billion euros for the second half of 2023 and annual additional income of 6.6 billion euros from 2024. The money is used “to stabilize the financial situation of social long-term care insurance and to finance the adjustments in benefits provided for in this reform”.
In order to strengthen home care, the care allowance is to be increased by five percent in 2024. In view of wage-related increases in care allowances for outpatient care facilities, the outpatient benefits in kind would also be increased by five percent: “There should be an automatic, regular adjustment of the cash and benefits in kind in 2025 and 2028.” Nursing allowance is transferred as support if the person in need of nursing care is not in an institution. You can use it freely, for example for caregivers. Depending on the level of care, it is between 316 and 901 euros per month, according to the ministry.
The head of the health insurance company DAK, Andreas Storm, called a five percent increase in care allowance “completely unacceptable”. This lacks the necessary respect for those in need of care and the performance of their relatives.
Co-payments for residents of nursing homes have been increasing for years – also with the relief surcharges introduced in 2022, which increase with the length of care. According to the draft, they are to be raised from January 1, 2024. This should reduce the personal contribution for pure care in the first year in the home by 15 instead of the previous 5 percent, in the second by 30 instead of 25 percent, in the third by 50 instead of 45 percent and from the fourth year by 75 instead of 70 percent. The background to this is that nursing care insurance – unlike health insurance – only bears part of the costs for pure nursing care. In the home, payments for accommodation, food and investments are added.
The National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds rated the draft as a “signal that the federal government is trying to address the problems of those in need of care and of care insurance”. However, the amount of the adjustment to the benefit claims is “far from insufficient,” said association vice-president Gernot Kiefer. “One cannot burden society-wide obligations solely on those in need of care,” said Kiefer. “What is a federal task must be financed by the federal government.”
Diakonie Germany also stated that the planned increase would not be sufficient to ensure the necessary care for people in need of care. “In order not to further increase social security contributions, a subsidy from the federal budget is required,” demanded the welfare association.
With the increase, the sum of all social contributions for pension, health, unemployment and long-term care insurance rose to 40.8 percent from July and to over 41 percent for childless people. The economy had repeatedly pushed for a limit of 40 percent. Overall, the contributions in 2023 rose by 0.85 percentage points: At the beginning of the year, the additional contribution to health insurance was increased by 0.3 points and the contribution to unemployment insurance by 0.2 percentage points.
