In the face of further increasing self-liability in home care, German Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) intends to push through a care reform with a limitation of self-liability as soon as the government is formed.
“Pflege must not become a poverty risk” Lauterbach told the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland” (Friday editions). “The self-liability in care must be capped at 1,000 euros” he said.
The capping of self-liability is mentioned in the SPD’s election program, but not time-bound. Even caring family members need to be urgently relieved, Lauterbach said. “The care reform must be one of the first laws in the next legislative period.” People in need of care and their family members need the security of being able to afford the care, the SPD politician said, who, due to differing opinions, was unable to present a reform of his own in the failed grand coalition.
According to an assessment published on Thursday by the Association of Substituted Health Insurance Funds, the self-liability for people in need of care increased in the first year of their home stay in the federal average within a year from 2,687 to 2,984 euros by the beginning of 2025. The actual care costs, to which Lauterbach refers with the mentioned 1,000 euros, currently stand at 1,496 euros in the federal average, having been 1,281 euros at the beginning of 2024.