Lauterbach with emergency plugs for maintenance
Mhe reform of long-term care insurance, which was decided just in time, shows that traffic light coalition able to act. However, that alone is not a seal of quality for a law that is above all another stopgap for statutory long-term care insurance and also complies with a constitutional judgement.
The Karlsruhe judges had determined that the generative contribution that parents with several children make to the stabilization of the care system must be recognized more strongly from July. SPD Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach made clever use of the specification and the associated pressure to reach an agreement. It now grants parents from the second child a contribution discount (for a limited period of time), and it burdens everyone else with almost 7 billion euros more per year through higher contributions – a heavy additional burden in times of inflation and economic slack.
Together with financial deferral tricks, the minister of the long-term care fund provides enough money to fulfill a number of performance promises and to save itself over the election period before new gaps open up. The traffic light coalition is doing exactly what it accuses the economy of climate protection: it is short-sighted. Like Merkel’s governments, she is refusing the difficult task of finding a viable solution.
The state cannot do everything
An honest debate is overdue about what the insurance, which is only designed as a partially comprehensive insurance, can and should do in the long term. With the number of nursing cases, the demands on good Care. The new law inevitably disappoints the high expectations – despite the billions.
“We double the expenditure on care every eight years,” said Lauterbach to appease. But what follows from this? It’s easy to see that things can’t go on like this. The traffic light adjourns the answer to a commission.
No wonder: it follows SPD and Greens, federal grants are to plug the holes, as in health and pension insurance. The FDP rightly rejects higher taxes or new debts. As in pensions, it encourages a state-organized capital stock. But money and time are not enough for that either.
Where is the insight that the welfare state has promised too many too many, especially with long-term care insurance? Reforms are needed that are based on the criterion of real need and limit aid to those who do not actually need it. It is a truism that the state cannot provide everything. Unfortunately, it is still true.
