BSW on health and care

The BSW wants a single citizens' health insurance into which everyone pays according to income and which gives everyone essentially the same benefits. Health insurers' additional contributions are to be dropped, ending what the party sees as two-tier medicine.

The BSW wants one health insurance for everyone. Everyone pays according to their income. Everyone gets the same care. The extra charges from health insurers should go away.

Benefits under the citizens' insurance are to match the highest medical standard. Costs unrelated to insurance, such as contributions for Bürgergeld (citizen's income) recipients, are to be paid from taxes. As an immediate step, privately insured people are to be able to take their old-age reserves along when switching providers. Medical confidentiality is to be the benchmark for digitalizing health care. Doctors and dentists in private practice are not to lose income when private insurance ends.

The BSW rejects hospital closures and the current hospital reform. It wants to end the separation between outpatient, inpatient and nursing care, strengthen municipalities and push back privatization.

The BSW does not want hospitals to close. It rejects the current hospital reform. Doctors' offices, hospitals and nursing care should work together better. There should be more doctors and nurses.

Municipalities are to gain more say in planning and organizing health and nursing care. Networked care models developed locally are to be made permanent, with the Federal Joint Committee setting minimum requirements. Family doctors are to be paid more. Maternity clinics and midwife-led delivery rooms are to be available close to home, and pediatrics, palliative medicine and hospices are to be supported. The BSW also wants more places to study medicine, more training places for psychotherapists, and more and better-paid nursing staff.

The BSW wants statutory health insurance to fully cover necessary dentures and vision aids again. According to the platform, healthy teeth should not depend on income.

Health insurance should pay fully for needed dentures. It should also pay fully for glasses. Today many people pay for these themselves. The BSW wants to change that.

The platform points out that citizens spend more than five billion euros a year out of pocket on dental treatment. Necessary dentures and vision aids are therefore to be fully included in the statutory benefits catalog again. The BSW argues that dental health must not depend on a person's wallet.

The BSW calls for full long-term care insurance paid mostly from taxes. This is meant to sharply reduce the out-of-pocket costs of nursing home residents.

The BSW wants care insurance that covers all costs. The state should pay for it mainly from taxes. People in nursing homes should pay much less themselves. Care should not make anyone poor.

According to the platform, a nursing home must not be a poverty trap. Residents' co-payments are to fall substantially. This is to be achieved through full insurance financed predominantly by taxes. In the BSW's view, dignified care in old age must not depend on money.

The BSW wants to raise the Pflegegeld (care allowance) for people caring for relatives substantially. It should be aligned with the pay of professional caregivers, because the platform regards caring for relatives as work.

Many people care for family members at home. They get a care allowance for this. The BSW says this money is far too low. It should be as high as the pay of professional caregivers.

The platform cites care level 4, where care is needed almost around the clock and 800 euros is paid. The guiding principle is equal pay for equal work. Besides more money, care by relatives should also get more social recognition. The BSW notes that women do most of this care work and therefore have lower pensions.

The BSW calls for a Bundestag committee of inquiry into the COVID period and an amnesty law that ends pending proceedings and refunds fines. Vaccine injuries should be easier to have recognized and compensated. The party argues that the state, in its view, arbitrarily restricted basic freedoms.

The BSW wants COVID policy to be reviewed. A committee in parliament should do this. People who paid fines for breaking COVID rules should get their money back. People harmed by vaccines should get help and compensation more easily.

In the committee of inquiry, politicians and their expert advisers would have to answer for the decisions made at the time. The amnesty law would end proceedings based on rules the BSW considers arbitrary; criminal cases involving personal enrichment or serious offenses would be excluded. For people with vaccine injuries, the platform demands less red tape in recording and compensating cases, plus medical support services nationwide. A large study using anonymized health insurance data would examine whether certain illnesses occurred more often among vaccinated than unvaccinated people.

The BSW wants to remove the powers of intervention added to the Infection Protection Act during the COVID period. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) should be reformed and made independent, and civil servants should be able to report problems without suffering for it.

The Infection Protection Act says what the state may do during epidemics. The BSW wants to remove strict COVID rules from that law. The Robert Koch Institute should be independent of politics. Civil servants should be able to point out mistakes without harm to their careers.

Above all, the BSW wants to repeal Section 22a on proof of vaccination, recovery and testing and the catalog of measures in Section 28a. Local health offices should again be independent expert agencies. The platform bases this on the RKI files, which in its reading show political influence on the institute. The laws governing civil servants would be changed so that officials who raise objections to orders (remonstration) do not suffer career disadvantages.

The BSW demands that Germany not agree to a pandemic treaty that gives the World Health Organization additional powers. It also wants the WHO's conduct during the COVID period to be examined.

The WHO is the health agency of the United Nations. A new treaty would give it more rights during pandemics. The BSW wants Germany to say no to this. The party also wants a review of what the WHO did during COVID.

The treaty is meant to settle who is responsible for what in preventing and handling pandemics: the WHO or national governments. The platform stresses that it would allow the WHO's director-general to declare various kinds of pandemics. The BSW takes a negative view of the organization's role during the COVID period and wants it reviewed.