Monday, January 18, 2010

German Health Care

Another chapter on health care from the T.R.Reid, this time on Germany.  Factoids:
  • German doctors are also unionized
  • Germany also uses smart cards for health care data
  • Bismarck was the father of social insurance.
  • So-called "civil society", the nongovernmental groups have always been big in German culture and society, and that's the way the insurance is worked, through your group affiliations.

2 comments:

private villas bali said...

Im a senior student in a Dutch University and our final project is about medical tourism. At the moment we are researching Germany and I must say that I dont understand how there are so many tourists coming to Germany for medical reasons as from what we have researched it is still very expensive maybe not for the inhabitants but surely for the foreigners. Is it really that good of a quality? Than its once again only for the people who can actually afford it. Any reaction is apriciated...

Bill Harshaw said...

I've taken the book back to the library, so I can't refer to it. He didn't mention medical tourism but he did stress the degree to which German doctors were scraping for additional income.

On the subject of medical tourism, we have Americans going to India for some operations and apparently there's a well-established pattern of Amish and Mennonites (who do not believe in insurance) traveling to Mexico for various medical procedures.