Many wealthy Germans to switch to public health insurance

[eridani]

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20120108-39989.html
Shocked by premium increases of as much as 50 percent, many Germans with private health insurance are seeking to switch to a national health plan, the news magazine Der Spiegel reported Sunday.

Many private health insurance plans pushed through hefty premium increases at the beginning of the year and that's behind the move to switch, the magazine said.

But it's not so easy to switch once you've opted for private insurance. German law only allows people to change from public to private in exceptional situations. These include when someone has lost their job. You can also switch if you are an employee whose salary falls below the ? 45,900 level. Workers who used to be self-employed but now have a full-time position with a similar salary may also change.

But a public health organization manager said, "There are tricks that we can use to help private patients, providing the employer cooperates."

The Barmer GEK public health organization reported that 27,600 people switched from private competitors in 2011-- nine percent more than in 2010.

Social Insurance and Individual Freedom
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/social-insurance-and-individual-freedom/

By law, every German must have coverage for a prescribed benefit package. German employees and pensioners earning less than 49,500 euros ($66,350) per year (in 2011) are compulsorily insured under the statutory system.

Employees and pensioners above that threshold are free to opt out of the statutory system and purchase private, commercial coverage, but if they do, they cannot ever return to the statutory system unless they are paupers. The intent is to minimize gaming of the insurance system by individuals.

Comment by Don McCanne of PNHP: It's only January, yet Germany already is providing us one of the most important policy lessons of 2012. It may be great politics to allow more affluent citizens to opt out of public health insurance and to express their personal faith in private markets by selecting private plans, but they may decide that it's terrible policy when the private plans come back to bite them.

But no games. If wealthier Germans chose the private plans, then, as long as they maintained their higher incomes, they could not game the system by moving back into the public plan should they lose their bet that they would be better off in the private sector. Many Germans who made that choice are now facing skyrocketing premiums in the private sector. They want back into the public program, but many will have to continue to live with their ill-advised decision to go private.

What is Germany to do now? It doesn't seem fair to allow those who made this unwise decision to escape the consequences when it would expose the public program to adverse selection. There would be no problem had the government prohibited the wealthy from making an imprudent decision to go private in the first place, which they could have done simply by requiring everyone to participate in the public program.

For those who say that it is unfair to not allow choice, as mentioned the Germans were smart enough to prohibit that choice for low- and middle-income individuals, saving them from potential exposure to financial hardship. Ensuring security is fair; permitting the choice of insecurity is not fair for those who end up losing.

There may be less sympathy for the wealthy caught in a financial bind of their own making, but there are two important reasons why the wealthy also should be required to participate in the public program: 1) the insurance risk pools (sickness funds) benefit from including the contributions of this wealthier and generally healthier population, and 2) the influence of the wealthy provides greater political support for the public program in which they would be required to participate. Consider the great support for Medicare as opposed to the meager political and financial support for Medicaid.

The obvious lesson for the United States is that we should eliminate the over-priced private insurers and establish a single national health program that covers everyone. We still may have some compassion even for those who want to play their ideological games but then run into trouble when they really need health care, but we should not allow them to escape their obligation to contribute equitably, in advance, to a financing system that many of them someday would have to rely upon.

My comment: Suck it up, Herr Ein Prozent. Hope you've learned that public goods ar actually GOOD.

[LadyHawkAZ]

1. So tempting to just say screw 'Em

They wanted an opt-out, they got one: if they can afford the higher premiums THEY chose, make 'em stay.

That's my first reaction. Then my better side kicks in and says: this problem wouldn't happen with across the board socialized medicine and no private opt- out.

[Laelth]

2. And will the U.S. learn anything from this example?

We can't. We don't even have a public option in our compulsory insurance system.

-Laelth

[xchrom]

3. Du rec. Nt