Contributions to long-term care insurance are expected to rise, while at the same time federal subsidies from tax revenues are likely to continue to increase. Presumably, the already high personal contribution of those in need of care must also increase. Nevertheless, the income will not be sufficient in the foreseeable future, as costs are rising sharply – not least due to the de facto collective bargaining obligation for nursing staff – and because fewer and fewer payers have to pay for more and more people in need of care in the current pay-as-you-go system. Against this background, the Association of Private Health Insurance (PKV) is now proposing to introduce mandatory supplementary long-term care insurance.
Christian Geinitz
Business correspondent in Berlin
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Above all, this is intended to reduce the risk that the own contributions will continue to increase, said the director of the PKV Association, Florian Reuther, justifying the initiative on Monday in Berlin. He described it as a goal to expand long-term care insurance into a "future-proof and affordable full insurance" while respecting intergenerational justice. That is why it is also proposed to make supplementary insurance mandatory for all citizens.
Pensioners should pay only half of the tariff
In addition to statutory or social long-term care insurance, which follows compulsory health insurance with the same insurance fund, there is also private compulsory long-term care insurance. When long-term care insurance was introduced in 1995 as an independent new pillar among the social security funds, it was expressly not intended as full insurance, but as "partial casco".
This limitation is now not only softened by more and more social politicians of left-wing and green forces, but also recently by the more market-liberal private insurance companies – probably also because new business is emerging there. However, little is said about benefit cuts, entitlement solutions, funded procedures in the existing funds or voluntary combinations of private and statutory models.
At the press conference on Monday in Berlin, the chairman of the PKV expert council, the health economist Jürgen Wasem, said that in the aging society, there are "inevitably" rising care costs. The scope to finance care through rising insurance premiums is limited. Otherwise, the younger generation, which is already heavily burdened, would be asked to pay even more. Wasem and his colleagues are proposing a funded supplementary insurance policy with retirement provisions.
The contributions could be between 39 and 52 euros per month, depending on age. This would cover 90 percent of care-related costs, it said. As in the case of the previous obligatory basic insurance, shared financing between employers and employees would also be conceivable for supplementary compulsory insurance.
The procedure is to be cushioned socially. Pensioners should pay only half of the tariff, for older and "care-related" cohorts could be capped. Recently, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) had presented a care reform with some contribution increases, but also with reductions for families.