Grüne on health and care

The Greens want to improve conditions for healthy eating because, as they describe it, diet-related diseases are especially common among socially disadvantaged people. Plans include protecting children from ads for unhealthy food, less sugar in soft drinks, and duties for retailers to pass food on.

The Greens want everyone to be able to eat well. Children should see fewer ads for unhealthy food. Soft drinks should have less sugar. Stores should not throw away good food but pass it on.

The plan includes a wider plant-based offering, clear labeling, and what the party sees as fairer taxation of plant-based foods. Special weight is placed on meals in daycare centers, canteens, and care facilities. Flavors for e-cigarettes that mainly appeal to young people are to be taken off the market. The Greens want to take up the recommendations of the citizens' assembly „Ernährung im Wandel“ (Nutrition in Transition). Food retailers are to be obliged to act against waste, and people who rescue discarded food are no longer to be punished.

The Greens want to organize outpatient care better and strengthen family doctors as the first point of contact. Local services such as municipal care centers, health kiosks, and health regions are to be expanded. The goal is for patients to find the right treatment faster.

The Greens want to strengthen family doctors. They should be the first place sick people go. Towns and villages should get more health centers. These centers also offer advice. People should get appointments faster.

The platform relies on telemedicine, digital tools, and close teamwork between doctors and other health professions. Municipal medical care centers and primary care centers with built-in social counseling are to be promoted. The separate funding systems for outpatient and hospital care are to be merged, and the distribution of doctors' practices is to be tied more closely to state hospital planning. Underserved areas are to get more support. The Greens also plan a right to patient navigators, more appointment hours for people with statutory insurance, less red tape for practices, and an accessible health system.

The Greens want to carry out the hospital reform already under way together with the states and adjust it where needed. Good basic and emergency care should be within reach everywhere, and specialized centers should deliver high quality. A reform of emergency care and ambulance services is to follow quickly.

The Greens want to continue the hospital reform. They will work with the states on this. Everyone should get fast help in an emergency. Ambulance services should also get better.

Adjustments are to focus on the quality of structures, processes, and outcomes, and on standby funding, meaning the money hospitals get for keeping services available. Private health insurers are to share the costs of the restructuring. The emergency care reform is to include ambulance services. Health and care facilities are to get help adapting their buildings to the effects of climate change.

The Greens want key active ingredients for medicines to be made in Germany or Europe more often again. The platform cites unstable supply chains as the reason. Pharmacy funding is also to be reformed.

Important medicines often come from far away. Sometimes they run out. The Greens want more production in Germany and Europe. Pharmacies should also be paid in a new way.

For essential medicines used in basic and emergency care, the platform aims for better payment rules. Pharmacy funding is to be restructured so that good and efficient coverage is secured nationwide. Pharmacists are to get more options, for example in telepharmacy and easy-access vaccinations. For children and teenagers, the party wants to ensure a reliable supply of medicines.

The Greens want therapists, nurses, and paramedics to be allowed to treat patients more independently. A dedicated law on health professions is to secure quality and cover additional occupations.

Nurses and therapists should be allowed to decide more on their own. This also applies to paramedics. The Greens want a new law for this. It sets rules for health jobs.

The platform names physical therapy, speech therapy, and occupational therapy as well as nursing and ambulance services. The planned health professions law is to include further quality-assured occupations and regulate their academic training. The licensing rules for medical and pharmacy degrees are to be revised. For rural regions, especially in eastern Germany, additional community health nursing programs and mobile services are planned.

The Greens want to promote maternity care nationwide and improve conditions for midwives. At the same time, every woman is to have access to abortion, which the platform sees as part of good medical care.

The Greens want good help with childbirth everywhere. Midwives should have better working conditions and fair pay. Every woman should be able to end a pregnancy if she wants. She should decide for herself.

Midwives are to get better working conditions and fair pay. Midwife-led delivery rooms are to be expanded. The platform says it takes violence in maternity care seriously and relies on training, continuing education, and better equipment for facilities. Access to abortion is described as part of medical care.

The Greens support an opt-out system for organ donation. Under it, anyone who has not objected counts as a donor. The platform justifies this by saying many people on the waiting list die because organs are lacking.

Many sick people are waiting for an organ. Some die because there is none. The Greens want a new rule. If you do not say no, you count as a donor. Parliament should vote freely on this.

In addition to the opt-out rule, the structures of transplant medicine are to be improved further. Members of the Bundestag are to decide on the introduction soon in a cross-party group procedure, without a party line.

The Greens want to compensate people who cut their working hours to care for relatives for their lost income for a limited time. Care is also to stay affordable so that people needing care do not routinely depend on social assistance.

Many people care for family members. They work less and earn less. The Greens want to pay them money for some time. Their pension contributions should also be paid. Care should be affordable for everyone.

The benefit is to be designed so that several people can share caregiving; pension contributions for caregivers are also to be covered. Leave from work is to become more flexible, and day care and short-term care are to be expanded. People needing care are to combine services from professional providers, volunteers, and private networks more freely, for example through a care budget. States and municipalities are to get more power to plan local care in a binding way. Home care services and shared care housing are to be funded better.

The Greens want to win back care workers who left the profession by offering better working conditions. These include more staff, more responsibility, and better career paths. According to the platform, hundreds of thousands would be willing to return.

Many care workers have left their jobs. The work was too much. The Greens want to bring them back. There should be more staff and better conditions. Care workers should have less paperwork.

The plans include higher staffing ratios, more authority for nurses, and a stronger nursing degree with new roles at master's level. The party aims for broad collective bargaining coverage, nursing chambers in every state, and a stronger voice for nursing in the Gemeinsamer Bundesausschuss (Federal Joint Committee). Training for nursing assistants is to be regulated uniformly nationwide. Documentation duties are to be cut to the minimum, also with the help of AI. A legally secure basis is to be created for live-in home care by workers from eastern Europe.

The Greens want tasks that in their view do not belong to health and long-term care insurance to be funded more from tax revenue. This is meant to ease the contribution burden on insured people and employers.

Health and care insurance funds pay for some things that are not their job. The Greens want the state to pay more of this. The money would come from taxes. Contributions should then rise less.

As examples, the platform names pension contributions for family caregivers and the insurance contributions for people receiving Bürgergeld (citizen's income). The state is to cover both at a more adequate level. This is meant to leave more money in the system for health and care.

The Greens want to orient health and long-term care more toward the common good and promote public and nonprofit providers. Financial investors are to have less influence. The platform sees profit orientation as a risk to the quality and safety of care.

Some companies want to earn a lot of money with clinics and care homes. The Greens see this as a danger to care. They want to limit the influence of such companies. People should know who owns a facility.

Ownership of health and care facilities is to be made transparent. Alongside quality and cost-effectiveness, sustainability is to be anchored more firmly as a goal in the Social Code. The party wants money from contributions and public funds to stay in care. It also wants to curb billing fraud more effectively together with the states.

The Greens are aiming for a Bürgerversicherung (citizens' insurance) that also brings privately insured people into the solidarity-based funding system. In long-term care, a financial balance between statutory and private insurance is to be the first step. According to the platform, those with more should contribute more.

Today there is public and private health insurance. The Greens want one citizens' insurance. Then everyone pays into a shared system. People with a lot of money pay more. Income from investments should count too.

The way contributions are calculated is to be reformed; in the future, capital income, for example, is to be included in order to shield wages from higher contributions. The minimum assessment base is to be changed for low-earning solo self-employed people. Federal civil servants are to get a flat-rate allowance that makes it easier to choose statutory insurance. People without housing, papers, or clear insurance status are to get easier access to care, for example through anonymous treatment vouchers and more clearing offices.

The Greens want to make prevention a task for every policy area. Makers of tobacco and alcohol are to pay more toward the resulting health costs, and advertising for these products is to be regulated more strictly.

The Greens want fewer people to get sick. Tobacco and alcohol harm health. The makers should pay more for the damage. There should be less advertising for them. Cigarette packs should no longer have logos.

Proposed laws are to be checked for their effects on health. Uniform plain packaging without brand logos is planned for tobacco products. A dedicated federal institute is to strengthen the public health service. Education about HIV and other sexually transmitted infections is to be expanded. Products that foster behavioral addictions, such as loot boxes, are to be regulated more strictly to protect children and teenagers; air quality in public buildings is also to improve.

The Greens want to create more therapy slots and crisis services so that people in mental health crises do not have to wait for months. A suicide prevention law is to be added. Children and teenagers are a particular focus.

Many people with mental health problems wait a long time for help. The Greens want more therapy places. There should be more help in a crisis. A new law should help prevent suicides. Children and teenagers should find help quickly.

Planning of psychotherapy capacity is to be modernized, and the advanced training of psychotherapists is to be funded adequately. Psychiatric care is to be community-based and avoid coercive measures where possible. Psychosocial centers for refugees are to be strengthened, and interpreting is to become a benefit under Book Five of the Social Code. The platform also wants to strengthen rehabilitation and expand research on rare and neglected diseases.

The Greens want a health preparedness law (Gesundheitssicherstellungsgesetz) to make the health system better equipped for pandemics, disasters and military threats. They also want to expand heat protection, since the platform sees the climate crisis as creating new health risks.

The Greens want a new law for emergencies. Hospitals and doctors should be better prepared. This covers disease outbreaks, disasters and war. People should also be better protected from extreme heat.

The planned law would cover prevention through clean indoor air, public information and permanent monitoring. It would also cover stockpiles of medicines and medical products and regular disaster drills. The public health service is to be strengthened further. On heat, the national heat protection plan would be expanded and every municipality would get a heat action plan.

The Greens still aim to allow cannabis sales in licensed specialty shops and are pushing for this at the European and international level. Drug policy should rely on help rather than prosecuting users, while police and customs are strengthened against organized trafficking.

The Greens want cannabis to be sold in special shops. These shops would need a license. This should shrink the illegal market. People with addictions should get more help. Police should focus on big dealers.

Drug rules should follow the real risks to health and society. Criminal police and customs would be strengthened to go after organized crime structures. Prevention, therapy and health protection would be expanded, including for legal addictive substances. The party wants to examine a nationwide minimum level of services, especially addiction counseling, including outreach social work, drug checking, and substitution and diamorphine programs. Measures are also planned against the harmful effects of gambling and addictive digital products on children and teenagers.