Policy Document

Law for the Structural Reform of the Public Healthcare System (Healthcare Reform Law) (from 1945-1990: West Germany)

Year

1989

Country

Germany

Topic

Health

Subtopic

Long-term care

Main implications

Eligible individuals were to receive home care delivered by professional home care staff. The home care was intended to complement care given by relatives. A goal of the home care was to make residential care unnecessary for eligible individuals.

Under the law, home care was defined as basic personal care and housekeeping, which would be provided in one-hour service calls. Multiple service calls on a single day were possible. Each beneficiary was entitled to a maximum of 25 service calls per month, at a maximum of cost of 750 DM per month.

Upon request, the insured person could arrange to be paid 400 DM a month by the insurance company to hire private personal staff.

Benefits & Requirements

Coverage: Eligible groups or beneficiaries

Insured persons who need help in performing common and recurring tasks of daily life as a result of disease or disability. The medical state of the person had to be confirmed by a medical doctor.

Read the Law

Original full text source in native language

BGBl. 1988 I:2477

Original full text web source in native language

http://www.bgbl.de/xaver/bgbl/start.xav

Comments & Clarifications

The goal of the healthcare reform law was to cut expenses in the public health sector. To achieve these reductions, the benefits for insured persons were redefined.   Paragraphs 53-57 define the benefits for the severely disabled. The benefits were first paid on 1 January 1991.  

Author

Data collected by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in the framework of the Population and Policy Database.

Cite as

SPLASH-db.eu (2012): Policy: "Law for the Structural Reform of the Public Healthcare System (Healthcare Reform Law) (from 1945-1990: West Germany)" (Information provided by the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research). Available at: https://splash-db.eu [Date of access].