DIFFICULTIES OF REACHING POLITICAL COMPROMISES ON LEGAL CARE INSURANCE - A PROVISIONAL STATEMENT

The paper takes an actor-centered point of view and reconstructs the l ong process in which a compromise on the question on how to provide so cial security for long-term care, especially in old-age was reached. P olitical debate on this issue passed through four stages: the stage wh en the ''social problem'' to be solved was defined, the phase in which ''adequate'' institutional responses to that problem were developed, the ''hot'' stage of bargaining between advocates of a so-called ''soc ial insurance solution'' and advocates of a ''private insurance soluti on'', and finally the stage, when a postponement of the decision was i mminent. The analysis reveals that the difficulties of reaching an agr eement on ''long-term care insurance'' mainly resulted from the comple x decision-making situation It was a problem of coordination among a m ultitude of ''players'' under conditions of general uncertainty In the end, only very specific political circumstances made it possible to a gree on a redistribution of financial burdens.