15% of Your Pay for Health Care Is Apparently Not Enough
That’s what the German’s pay, and yet their system has long ago run out of money.
Germany’s system relies on a handful of state-supported health insurers. This week they informed the government that the system was on the brink of a financial shortfall equal to nearly $11 billion.
Pointedly, the insurers made clear that cutbacks alone won’t solve the problem. They said the government would have to consider raising premiums on the insured or, you guessed it, raise taxes. Currently, German workers pay a fixed-rate premium into the insurance scheme; that rate is now set at 14.9% of gross pay.
Chancellor Merkel, something of a political acrobat, was previously allied in coalition with leftist Social Democrats. She’s now resisting calls from the Free Democrats to get off the state-pulled health-care train. The FDP’s spokesman on health, Daniel Bahr, wants a "shift in direction away from state-run medicine." Why? Because "the current financial figures have showed us that the health-care fund doesn’t work."
"Doesn’t work." Please someone inform the Senate Democrats of this.
Filed under: Economics • Government • Medicine
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