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geändert / updated: 17/04/08

 

 ... unabhängige Analysen für die globale Polis ...

(Mess; 01-06; p.2)

The structure of the health system so far

Most Germans are insured by public, self-organised and non-profit health insurances. This system, shortly known in German as "GKV", consists of more than 200 different insurers, most of them open to all employees. An employee has to be insured within the GKV up to a gross income of about 3,500 Euro per month, half of the premium is paid by the employee, the other by the employer.

If someone is an entrepreneur or self-employed, he may choose to insure himself in a private, profit-orientated insurance company, abbreviated in German as "PKV". The same goes for employees who earn more than the mentioned 3,500 Euro per month. Opting for PKV automatically means that there is no way back to GKV – a regulation that currently leaves self-employed people who cannot pay there premiums any more without insurance. Since Germany is a social state by constitution, health costs for this group, as well as for long-time unemployed and people unable to work, have eventually to be paid by the tax payer.

While premiums for the GKV are stipulated by the insurers as percentage of the employees gross income, insurers in the PKV-system conclude individual contracts, based on age, health risks, etc. Currently, a change between GKV insurers is possible without problems, this way opening the market for competition; as a side-effect, some insurers indebted themselves to offer low premiums.
A change within the PKV-system is more complicated: a contract has to be terminated, another to be concluded – practically, no change is possible at the moment.

Children are cost-free insured within the GKV; within the PKV, parents have to conclude individual contracts for them, too. (read on here)

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