Germany's pension and healthcare reforms: Spahn's cost-cutting plan

Jens Spahn, leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, has called for sweeping reforms to spending in Germany's pension and health insurance systems. In an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine (Wednesday edition), Spahn argued that pension benefits should be tied to actual years worked, while statutory health insurance expenditures must be strictly linked to revenue growth.

Rather than focusing solely on the retirement age, he said, future pension levels should reflect how long an individual has contributed to the workforce. "The concept of lifetime working years takes into account how many years someone has actually worked," Spahn explained. "There must be a difference between someone who completed an apprenticeship at 18 and worked continuously afterward, and someone who studied until 28," he stressed, adding that years spent in education cannot simply be equated with years of employment. "If life expectancy rises to 100, we can't just work until our mid-60s," he emphasized.

On healthcare spending, Spahn insisted that expenditure growth must also be aligned with the revenue of statutory health insurance. "The simplest and fastest measure is to legally mandate that healthcare costs cannot rise faster than income," the parliamentary group leader said.

Currently, he noted, expenses are climbing by eight to nine percent, while revenues are growing at only half that rate. "If we legally bind the two together, it affects everyone in the healthcare system equally—hospitals, doctors, pharmacists," Spahn said. "It's the fairest way to cut costs," he added, explaining that while all stakeholders would receive more funding, the deficit would no longer expand.