Fiscal Costs After Abolition of Asset Recourse in Long-term Inpatient Care

05.07.2020

Annual Additional Expenditure Rises to Almost 600 million € by 2030

In a current article of WIFO-Monatsberichte (WIFO monthly report), Matthias Firgo and Ulrike Famira-Mühlberger present the first estimate of the fiscal costs of the abolition of the asset recourse in inpatient long-term care. According to the report, this resulted in additional expenses of about 273 million € for the Länder and municipalities in 2018.

Projections indicate that this annual additional expenditure will rise to almost 600 million € by 2030. For the years 2019 and 2020, already additional expenditures of 289 and 308 million € (at current prices), respectively, are projected, followed by 427 million € in 2025.

The federal government compensated the Länder for costs resulting from the abolition of asset recourse of 295.5 million € for 2018. For the years 2019 and 2020, the compensation payments by the federal government are fixed at 300 million € each.

According to official statistics ("Pflegedienstleistungsstatistik"), public expenditure on nursing care services in 2018 increased by as much as 318 million € against 2017. "Part of this substantial increase in expenditure is, however, related to demographic and other effects beyond the abolition of the recourse", Matthias Firgo and Ulrike Famira-Mühlberger sum up in their report.

The abolition of self-recourse and the future annual valorisation of the care allowance ("Pflegegeld") also justify a reassessment of the longer-term expenditure paths in long-term care: from 2023 onwards, expenditure on benefits in kind will exceed that on care allowance. In total, public expenditure on cash and in-kind benefits will increase from 5.1 billion € in the base year 2018 to 9.1 billion € in nominal terms and 7.5 billion € in real terms in 2030. The projections in this report thus confirm the high dynamics of public spending on nursing care revealed in earlier WIFO studies.
 

Publications

Öffentliche Ausgaben für Pflege nach Abschaffung des Regresses in der stationären Langzeitpflege (Public Expenditure on Long-term Care After the Abolition of Asset Recourse in Long-term Inpatient Care)
WIFO-Monatsberichte, 2020, 93(6), pp.479-486
Online since: 02.07.2020 17:00
 
Die Abschaffung des Eigenregresses in der stationären Pflege und die künftig jährliche Valorisierung des Pflegegeldes machen eine Neubewertung der Ausgabenpfade für Geld- und Sachleistungen in der Pflege notwendig. Die vorliegende Analyse schätzt zudem erstmals den fiskalischen Effekt der Abschaffung des Pflegeregresses auf die öffentlichen Ausgaben. Insgesamt steigt der Aufwand für öffentliche Geld- und Sachleistungen von 5,1 Mrd. € im Jahr 2018 laut Projektionen bis 2030 auf 9,1 Mrd. € nominell bzw. 7,5 Mrd. € zu Preisen von 2018. Die Abschaffung des Pflegeregresses hatte im Jahr 2018 einen fiskalischen Mehraufwand der Länder und Gemeinden von 272,7 Mio. € zur Folge. Er erhöht sich bis zum Jahr 2030 auf knapp 600 Mio. € jährlich.
Please contact

Priv.-Doz. Dr. Ulrike Famira-Mühlberger, PhD

Research groups: Labour Economics, Income and Social Security
© Micheile Henderson/Unsplash
© Micheile Henderson/Unsplash