W. Kiernan:
> it appears that only 0.3% of the German public is
> uninsured, this percentage including "the very poor,
> who receive health care through social assistance.
This probably refers to people dependent upon Hartz IV. If you are on Hartz IV, they take over your insurance payments. Once you find a stable employment situation again (assuming you do), you go back to paying for it yourself. So there is generally no danger of losing your health insurance if you lose your job.
I don't know what the situation is for people who lose their Hartz IV, which *does* happen. What people outside of Germany do not realize is that Hartz IV is *not* an entitlement. That is precisely why it represents such a radical break with the system of post-WWII social insurance. If you receive Hartz IV, you are required to meet certain obligations that your social worker prescribes (so and so many job applications per month, you must take a job that is offered to you by the Job Center, etc.)
It would probably be worthwhile to investigate the situation of people who have fallen outside of the system.
> I see nothing saying that these universal benefits
> automatically disappear after a given interval of
> time, as do welfare benefits in many states in the
> U.S.A.
Are you talking about social insurance (Hartz IV) or health insurance? Hartz IV you receive until you find work again or receive a retirement pension or your income rises above the social insurance level (or you break the rules and have your benefits cut).
The risk of losing health insurance, I think is probably more an issue for people who previously had private plans who attempt to get into the plan of a public insurer again, and for "fake self-employed" ("Scheinselbständigen", workers who are not legally classified as such). If they go bankrupt, and can no longer pay their private insurance, under some rotten circumstances they are not taken by the "public" insurers.
That this is a statistically small number of people is undeniable, but it happens, it is catastrophic when it does, and it puts the lie to the notion that all European countries offer "free" health insurance.
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