With the reform of long-term care insurance, which was passed on time, the traffic light coalition is capable of acting. However, this alone is not a seal of quality for a law that is above all another emergency plug for the statutory long-term care insurance and also complies with a constitutional ruling.

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 onwards. SPD Health Minister Karl Lauterbach made clever use of the requirement and the associated pressure to reach an agreement. It now grants parents from the second child onwards (temporarily) a premium discount, while all others are burdened with almost 7 billion euros more annually through higher contributions – a heavy additional burden in times of inflation and economic downturn.

Together with financial shifting tricks, the minister provides the long-term care fund with enough money to fulfill some performance promises and save itself over the legislative period before new gaps gape. So the traffic light coalition is doing exactly what it accuses the economy of doing in climate protection: it is acting short-sightedly. Like Merkel's governments, it refuses to take on the difficult task of finding a viable solution.

The state can't do everything

An honest debate about what the insurance, which is only designed as partial casco, can and should do in the long run would be overdue. As the number of care cases increases, so do the demands on good care. The high expectations are inevitably disappointed by the new law – despite the billions.

"We double spending on care every eight years," Lauterbach said of appeasement. But what follows from this? It is not difficult to see that things cannot go on like this. The traffic light postpones the answer to a commission.

No wonder: If it is up to the SPD and the Greens, federal subsidies should plug the holes, as in health and pension insurance. The FDP rightly rejects higher taxes or new debts. As in retirement, it advocates a state-organized capital stock. But money and time are also too scarce for that.

Where is the insight that the welfare state has promised too much, especially with long-term care insurance? What is needed are reforms that are based on the criterion of genuine need and limit aid to those who do not actually need it. It is a truism that the state cannot do everything. Unfortunately, it is still true.