@The Voice In the Wilderness

He knew that giving the rabble a few perks would keep them quiet and allow him to get on with building his Mighty Nation-State.

#4
I was in a hospital OB/GYN waiting room. A older German man started talking with me. He waiting for his daughter, I was waiting for my wife. He was angry about the American system i.e. "come with the cash". He said it was obscene that people could be turned away because they couldn't afford treatment and told me of the German system. He apologized for criticizing America, but I assured him that I took no offense and thought he was absolutely right. I told him that was why I was a Howard Dean supporter.

Very simple. Everyone has insurance. Government sets prices. If you have a job, your employer pays the insurance. If you don't the government pays it. Drug prices negotiated at the beginning of the year and that's that, fixed price for all, paid for by insurance. The insurance is government insurance like Medicare. You can purchase private insurance for extras like a private room. He said hospitals were still wards. Sounds okay to me, as long as they have privacy curtains so that germs don't migrate.

Sensible. Germans are sensible people. IIRC, public medical services started with BISMARCK!

EDIT: And yes, you can pick your own doctor. Unlike England, German doctors are independent practitioners, not government employees, but the government fixes their prices, like Medicare Part B.

Did he describe it correctly, Mimi?

@The Voice In the Wilderness @The Voice In the Wilderness @The Voice In the Wilderness
to explain. I think this site Health Insurance in Germany describes it very well.
The important part is that everybody who resides in Germany, independent of you being a German, an asylant, an immigrant, a student, a job-less person, unemployed personit or a foreigner, who resides in Germany or just visit Germany at all, is mandated and must be insured at least in the Statutory health insurance (GKV/SHI) which is based on the solidarity principle. It is not a government health insurance.

Statutory health insurance contributions are dependent on income. The basis is the total gross income, from which a uniform contribution rate of 14.6 percent (as of 2020) is levied. This is divided equally between the insured party and the employer, i.e. 7.3 percent each. Each health insurance company also levies a different amount of additional contribution, which is paid in half by the employee and the employer. Students, self-employed and insured persons without income pay the full additional contribution. If the contribution assessment ceiling (2020: € 4,687.50 per month) is exceeded, income above it plays no role in calculating the contribution. Statutory health insurance allows children and spouses to also be insured free of charge with a family insurance policy.

You can buy a private health insurance from various providers instead, as long as you are insured at all, it doesn't matter what you choose.

I make my own example. When I was a student in Germany, I choose the insurance company TKK (Technker Krankenkasse), because I studied in a technical, science field. I think back then I paid around 47 German Marks per month. My income as a student was always below 800 gGerman Marks (back in the late sicties and early seventies. The insurance companies pay for all medical procedures and doctors visits and hospital stays, as long as a doctor says those visits and procedures are necessary. No out of pocket expenses for the one who needs treatment. When I started to work as a professional in my field and my income increased three fold or more, I stood with the same health insurance company and paid (shared half of it with the other part being paid by the employer. The health insurance companies do not cover you necessarily outside the German territory, but today they cover you in most EU countries. They do not cover you, if you are living in the US though.

So, when I left Germany to Italy and then to United states, I was dependent on my husbands health insurance provider of his employer. Arriving in the US I felt quite insecure about the coverage. Luckily I and my child never were sick and never needed a doctor. When I separated from my husband in the US, I needed to buy a private health insurance provider in Germany to get covered by them in the United States. My previous German health insurance company I used for over then years in Germany as a student or professional could not cover me in the US. My employer in the US didn't offer a health insurance for their employees. So I had to make some acrobatic balancing acts to get what was needed.

Well, it's very late here in Germany and I am tired. I also do not know much, but the basics you can get from the article I linked to. If you travel to Germany you can buy health insurance for your travel and the duration of your stay in Germany as long as you are not covered under another status (like student or freelance journalist etc)

So, yes, if Ranting Rooster could travel to Germany (provided he can cover travel costs and had someone to host him for his stay), he would have health insurance. So, tell him to try it...
Good Night.

Edit: My descriptiong relates to the time of the seventies. It is possible that the system has changed a bit, but not the basics.

Edit: Since I am back in Germany as a retired person my income is lower than ever, but I am back with the same health insurance provider I had as a student. I was lucky they took me i again, but that is too complicated to explain.

#4
I was in a hospital OB/GYN waiting room. A older German man started talking with me. He waiting for his daughter, I was waiting for my wife. He was angry about the American system i.e. "come with the cash". He said it was obscene that people could be turned away because they couldn't afford treatment and told me of the German system. He apologized for criticizing America, but I assured him that I took no offense and thought he was absolutely right. I told him that was why I was a Howard Dean supporter.

Very simple. Everyone has insurance. Government sets prices. If you have a job, your employer pays the insurance. If you don't the government pays it. Drug prices negotiated at the beginning of the year and that's that, fixed price for all, paid for by insurance. The insurance is government insurance like Medicare. You can purchase private insurance for extras like a private room. He said hospitals were still wards. Sounds okay to me, as long as they have privacy curtains so that germs don't migrate.

Sensible. Germans are sensible people. IIRC, public medical services started with BISMARCK!

EDIT: And yes, you can pick your own doctor. Unlike England, German doctors are independent practitioners, not government employees, but the government fixes their prices, like Medicare Part B.

Did he describe it correctly, Mimi?

@The Voice In the Wilderness who knows how many long lasting side effects that end up either directly killing people or making them even sicker and requiring lots of continuous and expensive medical care - after all, even Goldman Sachs admits a cure for any disease is not really in their wheel house since it would surely damage a nice, continuous revenue stream... A vaccine concocted by a bunch of start up companies because even the big guys know there might be some problems with it, so they'll manufacture it, but not invent it. A vaccine that will be hugely profitable to Pharma because it will indeed require multiple iterations since a virus by its very nature will mutate. A vaccine with proprietary ingredients that we, the little people, not only do not need to know about but have no damned right to even ask.

I'm sorry, the very idea of putting our lives even more in the hands of FOR PROFIT corporations doesn't sound like a real great idea to me, but then again, I am probably just a psychopath or better yet a full blown murderer because I refuse to put my faith behind a vaccine pushed relentlessly by less than honest corporate entities. Why, isn't it the American way to trust Corporate America? All good Americans trust Corporate America completely! And never any of us mind about the real deaths that will be caused by another lockdown, how dare anyone bring up economics when there's a killer disease afoot. How dare we look at real numbers and find that while 200k died from this disease, another 500k either suicided out, or simply died due to despair, poverty, starvation, or perhaps all those other causes of death that are now simply ignored while we argue on about "herd immunity" and how we get it.

#5
With Gates, anything is possible.