Reforming Health Care Finance: What Can Germany Learn from Other Countries?

German health care financing is now at the crossroads of fundamental reform. The two main proposals that the new “grand” coalition government must take as its starting point for compromise could hardly be more polarized. The proposal favored by the left, the Bürgerversicherung, a Citizens’ Health Insurance that is compulsory for all, would introduce a new system of proportional taxation, based not only on wages, but also on other sources of personal income, whereas the proposal favored by the right, the Kopfpauschale, would equalize per capita contributions for those enrolled in the statutory system by introducing a poll tax or Flat Rate Insurance (also advocated as the Gesundheitsprämie— a “health premium”).