Germans Can't Fathom US Aversion to Obama's Healthcare Reform

[mpohl 1]

By Miriam Widman

In Germany, people are baffled by how hostile a country as religious as the United States can be to the principle of mandatory healthcare insurance. Not even conservatives question the system, which businesspeople say gives Europe's largest economy a competitive advantage.

As the United States Supreme Court considers whether requiring people to have health insurance is unconstitutional, Germans are bewildered as to why so many Americans appear to be against universal coverage.

They also question the continued portrayal of US President Barack Obama and his health reform backers as socialists and communists, noting that healthcare was introduced in Germany in the 19th century by Otto von Bismarck, who was definitely not a leftist, and is supported by conservative and pro-business politicians today.

"It's a solidarity principle," says Ann Marini, a spokesperson for the National Health Insurers Association. "Not every 'S' automatically means socialism."

Marini and others say that mandated coverage is something that is simply not questioned in Germany. Furthermore, even the most pro-market politicians wouldn't dare to dismantle the country's health insurance system.

System Only Works if Everyone Takes Part

The requirement that everyone buy health insurance is based on a simple concept, healthcare experts agree. Allowing healthy people to opt out of having health insurance destroys the insurance community and leaves insurers covering only the sick.

American health insurance companies are well aware of that. America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in January saying the required coverage mandate cannot be divorced from Obama's healthcare reforms. In a convoluted press release it wrote:

"A wide range of experts has consistently agreed that enacting guarantee issue and community rating has severe unintended consequences unless they are paired with a strong commitment to achieve universal coverage through an effective and enforced personal coverage requirement."

In plain English, this means that if only sick people sign up for insurance it is impossible to insure people regardless of pre-conditions, or to limit insurance companies' ability to set prices based on an individual's history and risk. Everyone has to take part -- sick and healthy people -- for the system to work.

Competitive Advantage

This is understood in Germany, even by some American businesspeople who know their corporate health insurance costs could be much lower in the US, where no coverage is required.

"As an employer I would never question hiring somebody and not insuring them," says Seattle native-turned Berlin café owner Cynthia Barcomi. She opened Barcomi's, a café in the trendy Kreuzberg neighborhood, in 1994.

Three years later Barcomi's Deli opened in the central Mitte district. Between the two ventures she now has around 40 employees. Under German law, she pays roughly half her employees' healthcare premiums as part of their labor contracts. The actual sum is based on what a worker earns. Even though it costs her a lot, she's a staunch believer in the system.

"The national healthcare system is an incredibly important thing for everybody, for the entire society and for the health of the society," she says. "You just cannot have people falling through the grid because they don't have healthcare, because they are not healthy. The basis for everything is people's health, not just your own health but the health of your neighbor."

The American entrepreneur said she'd offer health insurance to her employees even if she weren't required to by law, as she is in Germany, because people are more productive if they think their employer cares about and believes in them.

"It's part of a working relationship; It's a tit for tat," she says during an interview at her Kreuzberg café. "If I want people to work well for me and if I want them to be satisfied with me as an employer, I have to offer them something that's more than just the minimum wage."

This attitude toward healthcare -- which seems so foreign in the US -- gives Germany a competitive advantage, Barcomi and other businesspeople say. A healthy workforce is a more productive workforce and recent German statistics would back that up. The country has relatively low unemployment and in many sectors the economy is booming.

But in the US, which spends more than any other developed nation on healthcare, an increasing number of businesses are "less competetive globally because of ballooning healthcare costs," according to an article published by the Council on Foreign Relations in March. Indeed, despite the ample spending on healthcare, the system remains inefficient, and the US ranks with Turkey and Mexico as the only members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) without universal heath coverage, it adds.

Don't Religious Americans Love Their Neighbors?

But there are other reasons why Germans are confused about the US healthcare debate. The US comes across to not only Germans, but to many Europeans, as a religious country. God seems to be part of many US debates, especially ones surrounding the presidential campaign. In secular European politics, the Almighty is rarely if ever invoked.

"For me the US is a very religious country. It doesn't matter which religion I look at -- love thy neighbor is a very, very important point in religion," health insurance spokesperson Marini says. For her, the apparent deep religiousness of many Americans doesn't jibe with their unwillingness to be part of a healthcare community.

Politician Wolfgang Zöller, a member of Bavaria's conservative Christian Social Union party, argues that Christian principles support a national healthcare system and both are compatible with capitalism.

He wonders how a working class man with a family who doesn't have insurance pays for an operation when he becomes sick.

"The question of health insurance is a humane question," he says. "I want every person -- independent of age, independent of income or pre-existing conditions -- to have the possibility to be helped when he is sick."

But that is not happening in the United States, according to numerous statistics.

The US ranks last out of 16 industrialized countries on a measure of deaths that might have been prevented with timely and effective care, according to a study released last year by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that supports independent healthcare research. Germany was in ninth place, according to the "National Scorecard on US Health Performance."

Premature death rates are 68 percent higher in the US than in the best-performing countries. As many as 91,000 fewer people would die prematurely if the US could achieve the leading country rate, the report said. Instead, the study notes that "access to healthcare significantly eroded since 2006," with more than 81 million working-age adults -- some 44 percent of those aged 19 to 64 -- uninsured or underinsured in 2010. This was an increase of 35 percent from 2003 levels.

Other advanced countries are managing to outpace the US in providing "timely access to primary care, reducing premature mortality, and extending healthy life expectancy, all while spending considerably less on healthcare and administration," the study goes on.

And that's exactly what Zöller says he's talking about. When people become sick they should be helped regardless of their financial or social situation, he says.

"Otherwise you're left with the famous saying, 'the poor die young.' And I don't want that."

[JohnRich 4]

Really. Try to think a bit more international:
That's America, not Germany.
Their country, their rules. Accept it or leave it.

[headoverheels 334]

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Really. Try to think a bit more international:
That's America, not Germany.
Their country, their rules. Accept it or leave it.

Accept it or work to change it.

[mpohl 1]

But it is my country. The US, that is.

How about YOU leaving it??? And take your genius Perry and Texas w/ you.

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Really. Try to think a bit more international:
That's America, not Germany.
Their country, their rules. Accept it or leave it.

[quade 4]

Interesting. You'd think of all countries Germany would understand the power of propaganda.

That's why so many people in the U.S., vote against their own best interests. They've been propagandized since birth to do so and simply are incapable as a country of overcoming that. It's not even that they can't think for themselves, but that for the most part, it doesn't even occur to them. Just check out what voter turn out is.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[lawrocket 3]

It's a further indication that Germans (and Europeans in general) understand Americans about as much as Americans understand Germans. The Germans simply has no concept of the American ethos.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's like reconciling quantum mechanics with relativity. Each works fine in their own placed, but don't apply them to each other's realms.

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healthcare was introduced in Germany in the 19th century by Otto von Bismarck

Gee, think 100 years of being born and raised in a system like that tends to lead a person to think that's the way things are done? Well, we've had no national healthcare for even longer that Germany has had national healthcare. It's easy to see why it's pretty ingrained on both sides.

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"It's a solidarity principle," s

And here we have a lot of people that like individuality. Whenever I hear about Germans getting all "solidarity" it just sounds bad because of some nasty things that have happened from Germany after healthcare was introduced.

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mandated coverage is something that is simply not questioned in Germany

Yeah. what's that say about a society that finds certain things off limits? Wouldn't dare to question it? In America, not daring to question is deemed to be a bad thing. We DO question stuff. We do it all the time. We do it simply for the fun of doing it. It's a pasttime to us. It's "ingrained."

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Allowing healthy people to opt out of having health insurance destroys the insurance community and leaves insurers covering only the sick.

American health insurance companies are well aware of that. America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in January saying the required coverage mandate cannot be divorced from Obama's healthcare reforms. In a convoluted press release it wrote:

"A wide range of experts has consistently agreed that enacting guarantee issue and community rating has severe unintended consequences unless they are paired with a strong commitment to achieve universal coverage through an effective and enforced personal coverage requirement."

In plain English, this means that if only sick people sign up for insurance it is impossible to insure people regardless of pre-conditions, or to limit insurance companies' ability to set prices based on an individual's history and risk. Everyone has to take part -- sick and healthy people -- for the system to work.

Yeah. The problem is that we have a written Constitution that, um, must be ignored. We can openly display Nazi paraphernalia here without government reprisal because we have a Constitution that says the government cannot prevent it. That's been around since before von Bismarck was even born. (And note: the healthcare didn't dissuade an Erb's Palsied Wilhelm II from dismissing von Bismarck. "Healthcare, my ASS von Bismarck! I'd shake your hand but I can't move it!")

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The American entrepreneur said she'd offer health insurance to her employees even if she weren't required to by law, as she is in Germany, because people are more productive if they think their employer cares about and believes in them.

Well, yes. That's how I was able to hire the Valedicrtorian of the law school as my associate instead of the big firm with the glitz. Because I offered better healthcare, better hours and better quality of life (and decent money).

So by making everybody else do what I do, my competitive advantage is lost. If everybody does the same thing the same way, there is no advantage or disadvantage.

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But in the US, which spends more than any other developed nation on healthcare, an increasing number of businesses are "less competetive globally because of ballooning healthcare costs,"

That's why y'all went to the Euro, right? Or was it so that y'all could compete better with the US?

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The US comes across to not only Germans, but to many Europeans, as a religious country

Many are religious. Many aren't. The perception is off.

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It doesn't matter which religion I look at -- love thy neighbor is a very, very important point in religion,"

In the US we realize something: teaching a person to fish is better for the hungry man than giving hi a fish. Why? Because then the person looks to the supplier of fish as needed. That person becomes dependent, and the person who supplies the fish is more easily able to exercise dominion over that person.

"Loving thy neighbor" may mean helping that person with food. "Loving thy neighbor" may also mean helping that person realize what is in him or her and arming that person to help himself or herself.

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"The question of health insurance is a humane question," he says. "I want every person -- independent of age, independent of income or pre-existing conditions -- to have the possibility to be helped when he is sick."

The problem with "humane" and "health insurance" is that "requiring to pay for health insurance" is servitude. And servitude is, by its nature, inhumane. This is finding an exception to the rule based on subjective. But, as Feynman, exceptions destroy rules. They invalidate rules.

I dont' find anything humane about being forced to do something. I don't. "But it's for somebody else" is no exception to me. It's STILL servitude.


That's my viewpoint. I DO question things. I DO have my own opinions. And I DO rather enjoy it when nobody agrees on anything because it's a sign of a healthy society that is constantly seeking ways of doing things better. We question why there is no national health. We question why there is national health.

That's my thought. I also note that this individuality IS being eroded. We aren't teaching people to fish so much anymore. We've been told that we can all be a success someday and encouraged to be that, until we achieve success and are told to screw ourselves.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[rushmc 23]

Quote

Quote

Really. Try to think a bit more international:
That's America, not Germany.
Their country, their rules. Accept it or leave it.

Accept it or work to change it.

within the Constitution or

Amend the Constitution

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[rushmc 23]

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Interesting. You'd think of all countries Germany would understand the power of propaganda.

That's why so many people in the U.S., vote against their own best interests. They've been propagandized since birth to do so and simply are incapable as a country of overcoming that. It's not even that they can't think for themselves, but that for the most part, it doesn't even occur to them. Just check out what voter turn out is.

Hmmm
I guess I agree with you

Your post explains why we have Obama for a President

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

[quade 4]

Yes, yes, we're such individualists in the US that if a character in a movie mentions something it has no effect whatsoever. It certainly doesn't spike sales of whatever that something happens to be.

http://www.slashfilm.com/lol-the-avengers-leads-increased-sales-shawarma/

Free choice? Individuality? Oh my, you've bought it hook line and sinker. It's simply an illusion. The masses in the US are easily manipulated. Individuals don't matter one whit. It's all about what the companies can get the masses to do and as far as healthcare goes, they've convinced the masses (not all, but just enough) to vote against themselves in favor of big pharma and the "insurance" companies.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[lawrocket 3]

[«eply]The masses in the US are easily manipulated.

[quade 4]

I believe you think you decided what you would have for lunch today.

I also believe its entirely possible, perhaps even highly likely, you made that decision based on an entire lifetime of being fed images and suggestions you are not fully aware of.

And that's just lunch.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[mpohl 1]

The Power of propaganda.

Remember the Soviet Union? It was all propaganda, all the time. In your face. And totally unbelievable.

And that's why the US succeeded. Better propaganda. So good, that people actually want to believe it. It's all lies and deceits, but, nevertheless, people like to be served their lies and deceits. This is the real MATRIX!!!

P.S.: And our own LawnRocket is its agent!

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Interesting. You'd think of all countries Germany would understand the power of propaganda.

That's why so many people in the U.S., vote against their own best interests. They've been propagandized since birth to do so and simply are incapable as a country of overcoming that. It's not even that they can't think for themselves, but that for the most part, it doesn't even occur to them. Just check out what voter turn out is.

[lawrocket 3]

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I also believe its entirely possible, perhaps even highly likely, you made that decision based on an entire lifetime of being fed images and suggestions you are not fully aware of.

I had three navel oranges for lunch. I did that because someone left a bag of oranges there. Sure, the succulent acidic juciness had something to do with it but this was actually an example where marketing had little, if anything, to do with my selection of meal.

And yes. I don't typically go for lunch someplace that serves something I don't know. I.e., I don't go to a muffler shop for lunch.

My wife is hotter than your wife.

[jumpsalot-2 3]

Quote

Yes, yes, we're such individualists in the US that if a character in a movie mentions something it has no effect whatsoever. It certainly doesn't spike sales of whatever that something happens to be.

http://www.slashfilm.com/lol-the-avengers-leads-increased-sales-shawarma/

Free choice? Individuality? Oh my, you've bought it hook line and sinker. It's simply an illusion. The masses in the US are easily manipulated. Individuals don't matter one whit. It's all about what the companies can get the masses to do and as far as healthcare goes, they've convinced the masses (not all, but just enough) to vote against themselves in favor of big pharma and the "insurance" companies.

Quote

I was trying to think of a way to spit it out.....these are the exact words....the people who would argue this fact are lost in the manipulation so deeply, they can't see (or admit that they see) it anymore......stop making billionaires out of the pharma companies and health insurance companies......we are the losers in that game......they are the winners.....and laughing (at us) all the way to the bank....

Life is short ... jump often.

[lawrocket 3]

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we are the losers in that game......they are the winners.....and laughing (at us) all the way to the bank....

And interestingly, you can buy into these companies. Odds are if you have a retirement package of some sort, you own a piece of these companies that is helping create a more secure future for you.

My wife is hotter than your wife.