D he dentist Peter Urbanowicz doesn’t think so from the proposal of the CDU Economic Councilremoving dental health from the catalog of benefits offered by statutory health insurance companies. “Crazy idea,” he says. The 77-year-old voluntarily treats people without health insurance at a Malteser hospital in Cologne. He knows his way around uninsured teeth.
Among his patients, for example, are self-employed people who used to have private health insurance and were kicked out at some point because of unpaid contributions. Since Corona, their number has increased. Even if they lived healthily and brushed their teeth properly, the situation in their mouths could be seen because the uninsured did not go for preventative care. “They only come when it’s too late and they have a problem. Usually some kind of pain or a broken tooth,” says Urbanowicz. He can treat the pain and pull the teeth, but he cannot fill the gap. There isn’t enough money for that. “Absolute nonsense,” he says about the demand from those around the Union.
The initiative by the Economic Council, a lobby organization close to the CDU, caused a stir. The health insurance companies spend around 18 billion euros a year on dental bills, mostly borne equally by employers and employees. The former would save their contribution through the plan. In order to do this, the latter would have to pay for their own dental health. Or – if they can’t afford it – they would end up like the patients of Maltese dentist Urbanowicz today. The rotten tooth as a sign of the poor – the demand from the Economic Council made it particularly clear what social cuts could look like.
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It will not be implemented for the time being. The leadership of the Union cleared it away and immediately defused the party conference motion in which the Mittelstand Union had accused Germans of a part-time lifestyle. However, both initiatives fit into an increasingly long series of proposals that have been pushed forward by the CDU leadership for weeks and some of which are already included in the coalition agreement. Friedrich Merz would like to abolish the Working Hours Act, which protects employees from involuntary mammoth shifts. He wants abolish sick leave over the phone, because he thinks that the Germans will then be less embarrassed. He would like to further outsource retirement provision from the statutory pension insurance to the private sector.
Limitation downwards
All in all, employers should have more power over employees and at the same time pay less for their security. In return, employees should pull more triggers and get less out of it in the end.
The welfare state debate of last year continues on a new level. In the first year of government, Black-Red concentrated on the classic social cuts: the tightening of citizens’ benefits, legitimized by moralized rhetoric against supposedly lazy “total refusers”. Indirectly, the reform also went against the interests of those who work – they will be less protected in emergencies in the future and in a worse bargaining position on the labor market. Nevertheless, a majority was in favor of it in surveys. The sociologists Steffen Mau, Linus Westheuser and Thomas Lux explained this phenomenon in their study “Trigger Points” as early as 2023 with a focus on low-income earners: Those who are far below want to differentiate themselves from those who are even further below. If “real or alleged ‘parasites’ are disciplined”, this is perceived as recognition of one’s own efforts – even if nothing improves one’s own situation.
The demands of the last few weeks are now directly directed against the workers themselves and therefore no longer against a minority, but against half the country. Over 40 million people are employed.
The intuitive assumption is that this cannot work and that the public’s approval will soon be over. These plans obviously go against the interests of employees. Why should they put up with the suspicion of laziness and take measures to combat the economic crisis that are largely to their detriment? With unclear prospects of success and the perspective: Even if it works, your position will be worse afterwards than it is today. In a different context, the traffic light period has already made politicians realize that after countless crises there is no longer much willingness among the population to make unreasonable demands. Least of all in areas such as your own boiler room – or your own oral cavity.
No change of course yet
To look even further into the past: The red-green agenda policy of the noughties already showed that every social cut has its limits. The counter-protests could not prevent the reforms of SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. In the long term, however, this cost not only the Social Democrats’ trust. The CDU under opposition leader Angela Merkel wanted to go much further, but almost lost the 2005 federal election and therefore withdrew its plans.
There is also a feeling in the Union today that things might be going too far. According to reports, campaigners from Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate pushed for the party leadership to intervene in the matter of teeth and part-time work. The bottom line is that there is still no change of course. The acting seems rather confused. But if the southwest elections are lost, the CDU will at least think again about the last few weeks.
So much for the optimistic version. But there is also a scenario for fatalists. One should not be too sure about the assumption that people vote according to their interests. Findings from sociology suggest The more unequally wealth is distributed in a society, the more likely it is to choose policies that cement inequality. Because if there is little at the bottom, the climb appears all the more attractive – so that the individual is tempted to have false hopes. They could make it to the top and then benefit from inequality
Loosely translated to the here and now: If my lazy colleagues should work longer, take fewer sick days and not have their teeth done all the time – if it pays off overall economically, I will be on the side of the profiteers. The workers will not necessarily turn away from the Union, but could also fight among themselves for the place in the spotlight. This thesis supports that inequality in Germany has increased measurably since the Agenda years.
The story of the lazy ones
Linus Westheuser, co-author of the trigger point study, does not see the situation as entirely bleak. The core of labor law and the welfare state benefits the broad middle of society and will continue to be supported by them, he says. Cuts there would be “very unpopular, based on everything we know.” He points to survey majorities in favor of eight-hour days and adequate pensions. So the tendency is: Scenario 1.
However, public opinion is not fixed. “Majority opinions must first be mobilized, publicly dramatized, given moral support and provided with arguments.” That would now be the role of left-wing parties, but also social associations and trade unions.
Will they be able to do that? The unions have been drumming up for this for months Working Hours Actbut so far they have not called for large demonstrations. Apparently they doubt their ability to mobilize – at least as long as the issue is not completely acute and is on the cabinet’s agenda. The SPD regularly contradicts the Chancellor, the party leader once even said “bullshit”. As the governing party, the Social Democrats are half involved in the matter – and the narrative about the lazy ones also goes back to her election campaign. In the opposition, the Greens and the Left are at least trying to raise opposition; at the time of the agenda, this was not the case in the Bundestag. But some gain absolutely no credibility when it comes to social issues, and others, despite Heidi Reichinnek, rarely get their way.
Perhaps that is why we end up with a third scenario in which opposing mechanisms are at work: the fantasies of social clear-cutting actually reach their limits, and the extreme demands disappear from the debate again. But the social cuts continue one level deeper.
And even if the economic union’s dental proposal is never implemented, it has served a purpose: other demands are suddenly easier to enforce. Maybe just abolish the subsidies for dentures? Would be intense. But now it seems almost moderate.