Many German observers are bewildered over the U.S. health carereform debate. Most Europeans see affordable health insurancefor everyone as a fundamental element of a stable and prosperoussociety — an element founded on the principle of communalresponsibility. Like the United States, Germany is a wealthy,democratic society with strong nongovernmental community institutions.1 In Germany, 90% of the population pays affordable contributionsinto the community-based system of statutory health insurancefunds, which is supplemented by employer contributions and sometaxes. The remaining 10% of citizens, most of whom have above-averageincomes, pay into private insurance schemes. For the . . . [Full Text of this Article]
Source Information
From the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, Cologne, Germany.
This article (10.1056/NEJMp0908797) was published on October 28, 2009, at NEJM.org.
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