My wish for all Americans; IAmsterdam life

[DFW]

22. Hardly!

Last edited Mon Jun 10, 2019, 05:43 AM - Edit history (2)

My wife is a retired German social worker (we live near Düsseldorf).

By no means is everyone covered, and certain procedures, especially dental, are deemed "optional" by all the German insurance companies so they can get out of paying for them altogether. When my wife took early retirement at age 60 (both health reasons and mobbing at work), I had to spring for her coverage (about €450 a month, or $6500 a year), or she wouldn't have been covered at all between the ages of 60 and 65. Good thing, too, since she had her second battle with cancer at age 64, and that was brutal. She was in the hospital for a month and then later on in rehab for almost another month.

Germany loves its bureaucracy almost as much as France loves its own, and it expects every one to take care of their own paperwork, even the several dozen thousand illiterate Germans (they get through school with street smarts, but they are there). If you are not active in taking care of your own, either a social worker does it for you or you really can fall through the cracks, and be totally without.