(de-news.net) – Simone Borchardt, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group’s spokesperson on health policy, has emphasized the need to set aside ideological considerations in debates over reforms to the long-term care system. She highlighted that advanced age does not automatically translate into care dependency, and argued that benefits should therefore be carefully calibrated to reflect the individual needs of recipients rather than being distributed uniformly across the population. Borchardt stressed the necessity for bold, systemic reforms, envisioning a framework in which elderly citizens could remain in their own homes while receiving high-quality, adequately resourced support. According to her perspective, piecemeal adjustments or incremental measures would be insufficient to address the structural challenges facing Germany’s aging population.
Recent discussions within the ‘Future Pact for Care’ working group, which brings together representatives from the CDU, CSU, and SPD, reportedly generated only a limited set of concrete proposals. Borchardt criticized the outcomes as largely ineffective, attributing the lack of substantive progress to the SPD’s preoccupation with minor procedural issues and partisan interests rather than with rigorous professional deliberation. A central point of contention remains the level of personal contributions required from care recipients: while the SPD has advocated implementing a ceiling on these payments to protect beneficiaries, the CDU/CSU contends that such a cap would be fiscally unsustainable. At the same time, the SPD has rejected the CDU’s proposal for a private supplemental insurance scheme, arguing that it undermines the principles of solidarity that underpin the public care system. Care associations have increasingly sounded the alarm that, without comprehensive reforms, the system could face significant financial shortfalls as early as the following year, raising concerns about both service quality and equitable access.
Parallel concerns have been voiced by the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV), which has called for decisive adjustments to prevent liquidity crises projected for 2026. Andreas Blatt, CEO of the GKV, informed the media that the current system is operating on borrowed federal funds totaling approximately 4.2 billion euros. While these loans are expected to cover the deficit in the short term, Blatt emphasized that the underlying financial situation remains precarious, and that certain care funds may require additional support to maintain operations. In response, he proposed revising the criteria used to determine care eligibility and refining the process for assigning beneficiaries to one of the five care levels, suggesting that stricter standards could improve both fairness and financial sustainability. Blatt also reflected on the generous 2017 reform, noting that the number of individuals in need of care has nearly doubled, rising from three million to almost six million, placing further strain on the system and underscoring the urgency of comprehensive, forward-looking reforms.
