Overview
- In a guest essay for Rheinische Post and Bonner General-Anzeiger, Hendrik Streeck wrote it is "not about saving" but about preventing over-treatment of highly fragile older people.
- The federal government distanced itself, with Health Minister Nina Warken and deputy spokesman Steffen Meyer stating that his proposed direction is not its position.
- The German Medical Association welcomed a structured discussion yet stressed that therapy decisions must follow patient will, prognosis and quality of life rather than age or expense.
- The German Patient Protection Foundation said terminal patients should not be pressed into futile therapies but called for dependable, well-funded palliative and hospice alternatives.
- Church leaders including Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki and Thorsten Latzel condemned any move toward age-based rationing as ethically unacceptable and discriminatory.