Wow, thank you for all this information. I was wondering if I was missing out, but I definitely am not!

Well costs are only one aspect. Try to get an appointment with specialized doctors with public health insurance. Some simply don't accept new patients at all as they are already crowded with non-critical standard check-ups etc., some give you an appointment in months (even if it is categorized urgent), some almost even a year if you go there directly. Some have 2 hotlines. The hotline for public health insurance is never picking up calls. The one for private insurance is picked up immediately and you get an appointment within the next day. My mon recently needed an appointment with a dermatologist for urgent needs (got an referral from family doctor), who had not the special equipment needed to investigate and treat the issue. She ended up making an appointment with a private doctor (not covered by public health insurance), paying the bill herself, as she was in pain and wasn't able to do her job anymore and to keep up care of family/household. Right before, we tried the physicians association hotline to make an appointment for us. The next available dermatologist accepting an appointment was 200+km away. If this 2 class system wouldn't be that sad, I would say it's a joke.

Thank you for this information! I assumed/remembered the gist of it, but I couldn’t quite remember why I never wanted to switch and suggested to friends and colleagues to look into things carefully (and think about a time in a few decades) before switching to private health insurance.

@@njordholm Well, there are also doctors who don't accept private patients like my father-in-law. He says although he could charge up to three times the money, it isn't worth the trouble for him. As with public insurance patients he only makes his quarterly accounting run with the "Kassenärztliche Vereinigung" and simply gets his money while he has to write a bill for every single private patient and if they don't pay immediately he has to write reminders and sometimes even doesn't get the money at all unless he goes to court... But yes, most times it is easier to get an appointment if you have private insurance. Notable: Sometimes in cases like the one you describe, the public health insurance might even cover the costs (up to the normal price for public health insurance patients) for private only doctors if you describe your case, but that is goodwill and nothing you can rely on. It still might be worth asking.

@@ThamiorSilberdrache Yeah, that's why I choose 'some' to describe. There are 'always' good examples to a certain matter.

You're completely mistaken. Public health insurance in Germany is by law (SGB V) handled by public corporations governed by public law, never by private companies. Please avoid commenting on issues that you don't understand yourself.

​@@gerohubner5101 Well said, just wanted to correct the initial commentary as well, but I have found yours and have nothing other to say.

That is not completely correct. You can change back to GKV, but this only possible if you are not 55 years old.

@@Dueruemtarget Exactly, because at that time you'll realize, that private health insurance will become very, very expensive when you get older, and then it's to late to change (evil laughter ...). Additionally, you probably need to change your job, since you need a job where you are subjected to public health insurance by law to be able to switch from private to public health care - but this workaround to go back to public health insurance is closed at your 55th birthday for good.

@@Dueruemtarget And only idiots wait that long, because they missed an important point in time. In order to be a member of the GKV for pensioners, you have to have been a member of the GKV for at least 9/10 of the last half of your working life, and that is extremely important. When you are in there, you pay the contributions for health insurance and long-term care insurance, based on what you receive in the form of a pension and any supplementary benefits from your employer. If you missed that, you pay up to the assessment limit for all types of income you have, interest, dividends, rental income, etc., small subtle difference. People with brains would rather just pay taxes on it. Preferably only 25% capital gains tax, because people with brains don't pay church taxes.

​@@Dueruemtarget Also not correct. The prerequesites are more complex, but your general statement is wrong.

@@Dueruemtarget and your status changes. If your status, being eligible for the private insurance, does not change, you cannot opt out and go back to the public insurance.

Wow! I didn't even catch myself saying that after the 5-8 times I rewatched it after post-production! Please accept my apology! 💛

In the past, the children had to be insured with the person in the private health insurance, today they can also be insured with the parent in the statutory health insurance. . And if you default in payment and ignore the reminders for a mandatory health insurance company, it can also happen that an account is garnished.

@@manub.3847 ach! That’s how old I am!😒😃

🤗

@@tasminoben686 Ben!!! Moin!!!😃👋

Thank you for starting that topic. We just would like to add some additional information which might be interesting :) Statutory health insurance is good coverage in Germany. Especially for families with 2 children statutory health insurance is like an all-round carefree insurance cover for the time you live in Germany. That’s why the price of over 970 euros/month is justified (income over 59,850 euros). Particularly for small children, who might need to go to the doctor more often, it is a good insurance cover with a manageable deductible. However, this means, that for singles or couples it can be worth comparing private insurance options. If you are planning on staying in Germany for a longer time, this can be a great solution - especially, when you already know that you won’t live in Germany as a pensioner. In that case, the private premium offers better benefits at a fair price. Expats in Germany therefore have a big advantage over German policyholders. A comparison is particularly worthwhile for expats.

You could actually get an additional insurance for little money to cover some differences between private and public insurance. For example teeth, hospitalization (1-bed-room or chief doctor treatment etc.), ... You can just add that or leave it out, depending on what is important to you. So just to have some benefits, you don't have to go private.

Thank you for commenting, we appreciate lively discussions and we would like to add something: After the insurance cover has been taken over by the private health insurance, there are not allowed to increase the premium because of a deterioration in health. Every customer of a PKV thus has a guaranteed benefit during his/her insurance period in Germany; a reduction of included benefits is not possible. Good to know: Premium increases also take place in private health insurance. Medical progress and inflation have to be factored in. However, this also applies to statutory health insurance, which not only adjusts premiums, but can also reduce or cancel benefits at any time. This cannot happen with private health insurance. Also: With private health insurance, benefits and premiums can be determined flexibly. The tariffs allow the expat to choose the price up to a certain level. The more benefits, the more expensive.

Or because they don’t get approved by the board of the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung or no „place“ is free for them where they want to practice.

Thank you Filipe, there seems to be a misunderstanding: After the insurance cover has been taken over by the private health insurance, there are not allowed to increase the premium because of a deterioration in health. Every customer of a PKV thus has a guaranteed benefit during his/her insurance period in Germany; a reduction of included benefits is not possible. Good to know: Premium increases also take place in private health insurance. Medical progress and inflation have to be factored in. However, this also applies to statutory health insurance, which not only adjusts premiums, but can also reduce or cancel benefits at any time. This cannot happen with private health insurance.

That is the maximum if you earn well and the employer pays half of it. Otherwise it's less. I find €728 max. for the employe. And how much do you need to pay for visits, treatments, operations in the US ?

First excuse my bad english, pls I think it is true, but.... - is your wife (if she has no job) included in your insurance? - are your children included in your insurance? - can you choose the doctor you want, or must you visit the doctor your insurance tell you? - how much you pay for a day in hospital? in germany you pay 10 Euro/day for food and so on.... I think you can't just compare the monthly costs

That's the maximum rate for people who don't fall into any category. Usually you pay maybe 200 up to 400 Euro. And you don't have to fear that you get a bill over 20.000 Euro nevertheless because one of the doctors who touched you didn't have a contract with your insurance company... that's clearly regulated.

Another smart guy comparing apples to oranges! Let's ask, your health insurance in the USA also covers every visit to the doctor, every ambulance, every hospital stay, every due date, prenatal care and aftercare, all aids without co-payment/personal contribution or without co-payment/personal contribution that exceeds 10 euros? Or do you not pay anything in the USA, the costs add up very quickly. OK, I want to be honest, we also have to pay in the hospital or for rehabilitation measures. In the hospital 10 euros a day for a maximum of 28 days a year, that used to be better when it was only 18 days. For rehabilitation measures, 10 euros for a maximum of 42 days per year, with a maximum of 14 days for rehabilitation measures following a stay in the clinic. If I look at the posts of some expats, a single visit to the doctor is more expensive in the USA. It should be noted that the 10 euros are usury, a professional or temporary soldier only has to pay 9.60 euros when they are obliged to take part in communal catering and a person doing military service is paid the same amount if he is not in the barracks over the weekend. The fact that that's 0.40 cents more is a bottomless cheek, especially since I can get by with less money at home. Only idiots have an ornamental garden where you can also grow lettuce, vegetables and fruit. "Branded products" for milk, yogurt, butter, etc. only buy idiots, 3.5 percent milk is still 3.5 percent milk. It doesn't matter whether it's in the overpriced box of a "brand manufacturer" or in the house brand of a discounter like Aldi or Lidl. The same applies to butter, what can be called butter is defined throughout the EU and if it says (German) table butter in Germany or tea butter in Austria, it is always the highest quality level, why should you be so stupid and buy an overpriced branded product? Can you continue with medium-hot mustard, when I was a student I worked for a manufacturer who also produced for Aldi, exactly the same goo was bottled for Aldi and their own brand, only the glass was thinner and shaped differently. Not to forget there was a small difference, at Aldi the glass with the same filling cost either 0.59 or 0.69 German marks, the branded product had a mark more at the front, a little brazen to exploit the stupidity of others and just like that asking more than twice what it's actually worth. Back to the health care system and health insurance, because the system in the US is so great, that's why the infant mortality rate is on par with developing countries, or even worse than in some of them. Whether that has something to do with the "minor" co-payments for every doctor's visit or hospital stay in the USA? Apart from those who don't have any health insurance because they can't afford it. Incidentally, you do not pay 1000 euros health insurance in Germany, you only pay if you earn 66,600 euros (monthly 5,550 euros) gross or more. And only if you are self-employed, in the case of employees, the employer pays half of the contributions for health insurance, nursing care insurance, pension fund, if necessary for a supplementary pension. In addition, the employer continues to pay wages for six weeks (for the same illness), followed by 72 weeks of sick pay amounting to 90% of the net income from the GKV. In addition, there is four weeks of statutory minimum vacation, usually six weeks with a collective agreement, and if a severe disability of at least 50% is present, there is one more week of vacation, which is even more difficult to cancel. Then there are per parent and child under the age of 12, if they fall ill and have to be cared for, either 30 days of continued wages or sickness benefit from the GKV, for single parents this increases to 60 days. Not to forget, if children are still in training, then they are also insured in the family insurance from the age of 18 to their 25th birthday. The same applies to a partner who is stupid enough to stay at home because of the children and therefore has no income of his own and is therefore not entitled to his own old-age pension. If the pensioner dies, that can get pretty tight. The survivor's pension accounts for only 55 percent. In addition, employees can claim 1900 euros and self-employed persons 2800 euros in the tax return. Which obviously does not compensate for the additional costs for the self-employed. It makes sense to found a UG (limited liability company) or a limited liability company as a self-employed person, also to protect your own assets. The former can later be converted into the latter. You get hired there, so you're an employee and the company pays half of the social security contributions, which reduces the pre-tax income. If you marry your wife/partner, you ensure that you are not the controlling shareholder, otherwise you will not receive unemployment benefits in the event of insolvency or the liquidation of the company. Whereby the trust should not go too far, you keep trademark rights and patents yourself and only make them available to the company, make sure contractually that this also applies to patents and utility models that are acquired during business activities. From that point of view, let's recalculate your American savings. We're not assuming soldiers and graduates of a master's degree with a subsequent top position and a top contract in some large company. Which, by the way, first has to put a whopping five or six-figure sum on the table for the university, in Germany you study without these costs. Rather, we assume the normal low or average earner in small businesses who are a little less generous, which is the majority of the population. Where do you think the average family does better overall. You Americans are always lying to your pockets, everything that you pay less in taxes and duties, you pay twice or three times more elsewhere. What is paid elsewhere by the state or the local authorities, you have to pay privately, whereby families with low and middle incomes are disproportionately affected and there is no social compensation. Just when I look at the lousy education system, outside the private schools and universities that are unaffordable for mere mortals, I get sick, the result can be seen on the streets and in the privately run prisons. When I say stupid things like "why should I use my taxes to pay for other people's children's studies" I get sick. Ask who should pay for the manufacture or manufacture of a company's means of production, but the company. The state's means of production are the tax and duty payers, so it has to pay for the creation of these from it's budget and not pass the costs on to third parties (parents/grandparents/...). Good education at all levels also ensures that people disappear from the streets into employment. Much cheaper in the long run than providing lifelong housing or care at government expense. And what the gentlemen, who always don't want to pay for the education of third parties, overlook are these children who will later help ensure that their pension funds yield reasonable returns and that the state can provide a reasonable infrastructure with their taxes and duties. The better the education, the higher the income, the higher the returns for the general public. You can't just pick any individual points and pick the advantages without considering the disadvantages that result elsewhere. The fact is, if you leave out the top 10 percent in terms of income and assets, for which it doesn't matter anyway, the living conditions for the remaining 90 percent in the EU, Switzerland or Norway are much better secured than in the USA. POINT!

Probably subsidized by your employer. I pay over $60,000/year for a family of three unsubsidized. This is for a regular PPO plan.

Das Video ist ja auch nicht für Deutsche oder in Deutschland lebende gedacht, dient dazu denen westlich über dem großen Teich das Prinzip zu erklären.

Legally, Mary, everyone is required to have health insurance. Even refugees here in Germany are covered by health insurance (and do not have to pay for it if they are being supported by the government.) 800€ is a maximum for those who earn in the highest income bracket, not for the homeless or lower income families. And it is absolutely absurd for you to make such a bold assumption that I am covered under my husbands health insurance plan and over-privileged. You have no idea who I am or my financial situation. But I can tell you this. I work full-time, pay my own health insurance, and my own bills. You have no idea who I am so please don’t be so rude as to make assumptions of me.

@@lifeingermany_ say you’re a privileged pompous woman and move on honey. I myself was 2 years here without health insurance and had no way to paying for it out of pocket. You’re so condescending it’s unreal.