Private Health Insurers Reject Chancellor Scholz’s Plans for Nursing Home Funding
The private health insurers (PKV) have rejected Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s (SPD) plans to work more closely with statutory health insurance funds to finance nursing care and contribute a multi-billion-euro subsidy.
According to the “Bild” newspaper, the head of the association, Florian Reuther, stated that the calls for a financial equalization between the socially financed social long-term care insurance and the capital-decked private long-term care insurance reveal that the SPD has no own concept to tackle the demographic challenges. He considers a such financial equalization as “unconstitutional”.
Chancellor Scholz had explained on Sunday evening in the TV duel on ARD and ZDF that the SPD plans to introduce a “solidarity surcharge” between the statutory and private insurance funds for the statutory long-term care insurance, in addition to a cost-covering for patients.
A private health insurer’s spokesperson told the “Bild” that the expected financial relief for all patients would not occur: “With around 58.3 million members in the SPV, this would be a monthly average premium reduction of only 2.86 euros per member.