The financing of long-term care insurance is considered a long-term care case anyway.

A reform is becoming even more urgent now that the Federal Constitutional Court has asked the legislature to stagger contributions to long-term care insurance according to the number of children.

The First Senate has given politicians until the end of July 2023 to do this.

Federal Minister of Health Karl Lauterbach (SPD) assures that the decision from Karlsruhe published on Wednesday will be implemented on time.

“Long-term care insurance must also be fundamentally more solidly financed.

We will tackle that too," Lauterbach told the editorial network Germany.

Katja Gelinsky

Business correspondent in Berlin

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Politicians of the traffic light coalition as well as the CDU praised the "true-to-life" decision" of the Karlsruhe court that the number of children in the contribution system of the long-term care insurance should be taken into account in the future - politics would have had it in their hands to bring about this "close-to-life".

In the current long-term care insurance system, childless people have been paying a surcharge since 2005 – after the Federal Constitutional Court had criticized the undifferentiated contributions for childless people and parents in 2001 in the so-called long-term care insurance ruling as unconstitutional.

The court is now continuing this case law to the effect that a differentiation must also be made according to the number of children.

In this respect, the judges agreed with the parents from Freiburg who had filed a constitutional complaint.

The social court in Freiburg had also turned to Karlsruhe,

Positive reaction from associations

The Federal Constitutional Court does not make any specifications for the specific design of the new regulation.

The legislature has a “great scope for assessment, evaluation and design”.

The First Senate makes it clear that politicians are not forced to increase the contributions of childless people and then also of parents with fewer children.

The relief for families with many children can, for example, also be financed (proportionally) through tax-financed federal grants or "other contributory and benefit-related instruments".

Family associations expressed their satisfaction with the decision on long-term care insurance.

"But unfortunately it only affects the economically most insignificant of the three branches of social security," said Ulrich Hoffmann, President of the Family Association of Catholics.

Politicians are spared the introduction of child allowances in statutory pension and health insurance, which was particularly important to the complaining parents.

The court ruled that there was no constitutional objection to the fact that parents and childless people paid the same contribution to health and pension insurance.

The cost of raising children is sufficiently compensated for in the pension and health insurance system.

In the pension insurance, this is done primarily through the recognition of child-rearing periods,

"The Federal Constitutional Court made a wise decision not to require any further consideration of children in health and pension insurance," praised Anja Piel, member of the board of the German Trade Union Confederation.

Irrespective of this, "a fair sharing of the burden across society as a whole is necessary, which is not limited to individual systems or groups." The deputy chairman of the FDP parliamentary group, Lukas Köhler, also expressed his relief that the Federal Constitutional Court accepted the contribution structure in the pension and health insurance system.

Climate issue

In the 1990s in particular, the court had made multi-billion dollar decisions in tax and social security law in favor of families.

In the 2001 judgment on long-term care insurance, the legislature gave up the task of “examining the meaning of the judgment for other branches of social insurance as well”.

More recently, the Karlsruhe climate resolution from 2021 had increased hopes among the complaining parents and the family associations supporting them that the court would demand a reduction in contributions for parents in the pension and health insurance system.

The climate decision states that under certain conditions, the Basic Law obliges people to protect “opportunities for freedom beyond the generations”.

Since then, there has been a heated debate as to whether this obligation to "secure fundamental rights-protected freedom over time" applies not only to climate protection, but also to other areas of life - especially in the area of ​​pension insurance.

Here, too, there is a danger that the freedom of future generations would be excessively restricted because costs are being shifted into the future, argue those who want to transfer the climate protection argument to the social security systems.

However, the First Senate does not seem willing to go that route.

In the decision on long-term care insurance, the First Senate did not mention its climate resolution at all.