Due to demographic change, the nursing shortage will continue to worsen in the coming years. More and more members of the so-called baby boomer generation are reaching an age in need of care, and at the same time nursing staff are increasingly retiring, the health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit reported in its new report Nursing report. These circumstances are also likely to have an impact on the contribution rates during DAK.
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“We are at a tipping point: social long-term care insurance is in danger of losing its functionality in a few years,” said DAK CEO Andreas Storm. The DAK announced that the ever-increasing number of people in need of care in Germany will make it necessary to increase care contributions as early as next year. In order to stabilize long-term care insurance, the Bundestag actually passed a reform in 2023 in order to secure finances until 2025. According to the DAK report, however, there could be significant financing gaps as early as the fourth quarter of 2024. This may require a higher care contribution.
“The promise made by Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) last year of at least a short-term stabilization of care finances by the end of the current electoral term can no longer be kept,” said Storm. He called for a concept that would secure the growing financial needs in the long term due to rising costs in nursing care.
According to the report’s calculations, 2.3 million more people will be dependent on care in the next 25 years than today. The number of people in need of care will rise from 5.2 million in 2022 to 7.5 million in 2050.
Lack of young people in nursing
According to the DAK, in addition to money, there is also a lack of staff. Due to age-related retirements and the decreasing number of young people, the number of nursing staff shortages is increasing. Soon there will no longer be enough graduates from nursing schools to replace the baby boomers who are leaving the profession.
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According to the study, over 1.14 million professional nurses worked in Germany in 2023. More than a fifth will reach retirement age in the next ten years and will then have to be replaced – the need varies between 19.7 percent in Saxony and 26.5 percent in Bremen.
“In individual federal states, tipping points will be reached this decade at which significantly more nurses will retire than young people will enter the profession,” says the report. This will be the case in Bremen and Bavaria as early as 2029.
Due to demographic change, the nursing shortage will continue to worsen in the coming years. More and more members of the so-called baby boomer generation are reaching an age in need of care, and at the same time nursing staff are increasingly retiring, the health insurance company DAK-Gesundheit reported in its new report Nursing report. These circumstances are also likely to have an impact on the contribution rates during DAK.
“We are at a tipping point: social long-term care insurance is in danger of losing its functionality in a few years,” said DAK CEO Andreas Storm. The DAK announced that the ever-increasing number of people in need of care in Germany will make it necessary to increase care contributions as early as next year. In order to stabilize long-term care insurance, the Bundestag actually passed a reform in 2023 in order to secure finances until 2025. According to the DAK report, however, there could be significant financing gaps as early as the fourth quarter of 2024. This may require a higher care contribution.