Healthcare in Germany

Germany has a healthcare system paid for partly by statutory health insurance (Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung) and partly by private health insurance (Private Krankenversicherung). Patients are allowed to seek almost any type of care they wish whenever they want it.  People with high incomes can just have private insurance, which is provided by 41 insurance companies.  This also covers civil servants and the military.  The statutory health insurance schemes, 110 of them,  are mostly paid for by taxes paid by workers and their employers.  Rich people who do not have jobs do not contribute. 

It is the world's oldest national social health insurance system, set up by Otto von Bismarck in 1883.

The system is decentralized with private practice doctors providing care in the community, and independent, mostly non-profit, hospitals doing most  of the care in hospitals. Adults in hospital have to pay €10-15 per day, up to a maximum of 28 days in a year.

Germany spent just under 13% of its gross domestic product on health in 2021. In 2022 that was €5879 per person. there were about 12 nurses for each 1000 people and three times as many hospital beds per person as in the United Kingdom.   

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