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Comment by kuerbel | Hacker News Reader

That is not "fucked up" it is called the solidarity principle. You contribute when you have the capacity to contribute, and society protects you when you happen to need more than you can afford. Netflix is a consumer product, and health insurance is risk pooling. You're treating health insurance as if you're buying healthcare services. You're not. You're buying protection against an uncertain financial risk.

Also you forgot the contribution assessment ceiling at €69,750/year.

However, Germany has a legitimate problem when contribution levels, service quality, and access aren't aligned with what people feel they're paying. That is a different discussion which needs much more nuance and intimate knowledge of the German healthcare system.

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The fucked up part is the forced solidarity and high barrier to exit the so called solidarity principle. You need 77,400€ annual salary to switch to private insurance in 2026 and in 2027 it will be increased to 84,150€.

> The fucked up part is the forced solidarity

Of course it is forced, it has to be. What's the alternative? Make it voluntary, which immediately will lead to the total cost only being spread across sick people that definitely are going to cost the system money, resulting in an immediate increase in coverage cost, making it unavailable to a large part of the population? Just look at how well removal of the fee for non-coverage under the ACA worked in the US. That's just "let's take health insurance away from poor people" with more steps.

Not op, but it’s solidarity if money is freely given, let’s call it something else when money is taken without consent.

Why not call it taxes?

And there certainly is consent, given voters can choose to elect people who will change the system, or not.

Tyranny of the masses is a very strange notion of consent.

The Solidaritätsprinzip is named that to distinguish it from the Äquivalenzprinzip (equivalency principle) of private insurance: with private insurance, your cost rate is determined by the services you would like to have covered as well as the assessed risk that you will consume these services as calculated by the insurance carrier's actuaries. In Germany (and other European countries), the public option insurance instead only uses your income to determine your rate: the insured risks are common and paid by everyone together instead of by the individual.

"Solidarity" is a pretty good term for that abstract idea. What would you like to suggest instead?

And yeah, I understand that people that do not buy into the concept of a society pooling together such risk to create a model that works best in the aggregate instead of emphasizing individual choice are going to hate everything about this. If you want to be able to save money in exchange for taking on risk, such a society can't let you easily do that because it'll inevitably lead to a tragedy of the commons; such a society would also likely help you anyway if you made the wrong risk trade-offs and become a burden to the state.

Also, let's be clear: this principle is still very popular in Germany. I haven't lived there in a long time so I was curious and gave it 30 seconds. Admittedly the source here is an insurance carrier, but they found in a survey that while 66% of Germans last year were worried about insurance costs and the financial sustainability of the German healthcare system, 73% support the solidarity principle (https://www.aok.de/pp/gg/update/solidaritaet-gkv/)

Late reply, apologies. And let me first thank you for the provided context.

My notion is, that anything labeled as solidarity has to be an act of free choice. Using Solidarity for a forced "choice" is an example of doublespeak. For context, another example for doublespeak is the "USA Freedom Act" policy that brought mass surveillance.

To answer your question for a word I'd prefer: How about an ontologically expressive word like "collectivity principle" / "Kollektivitätsprinzip". Coincidentally, I just googled it, "Kollektivitätsprinzip" is used in Switzerland instead of the word "Solidaritätsprinzip". Becks the question why Switzerland is honest where Germany uses doublespeak?

To finish, you can see that I am not arguing against the "Solidaritätsprinzip", no, I argue against the dishonesty of using doublespeak. A futile undertaking, but sometimes I cannot help myself.

Well, people would not want to pay more, so free solidarity can not work. The net result will be higher taxes, of course. The question is whether these costs are worth it or not, but not the "let people do what they want" as that won't work - see how US billionaires don't really give up their wealth voluntarily. And now, building a foundation is just an excuse to not give the money to the people. It is for their protection of wealth, not for solidarity.

The word „solidarity“ means here that you empathize with other people and contribute to shared prosperity and success. You share the healthcare system with a lot of people who make the country what it is. Some of them earn less, some earn more, and that‘s ok. With your contributions you make sure that those who bake your wonderful bread, run the public transport or clean the streets in your neighborhood are covered. If you would rather prefer American system with its deficiencies, because you are high earner and don‘t like to share, you can always go there. Dubai is also nice for people with some cash and tolerance to human rights violations.

What is really fucked up about Germany, is that exit to private insurance exists in principle, and our Bundesmimose Friedrich Merz have never used statutory one. The existing system has deteriorated only because nobody in the government is using it and has no clue what people now experience daily.

> What is really fucked up about Germany, is that exit to private insurance exists in principle, and our Bundesmimose Friedrich Merz have never used statutory one. The existing system has deteriorated only because nobody in the government is using it and has no clue what people now experience daily <

its designed that way, no worries.

Are you in favor of abolishing car insurance as well? It’s the same principle, pool money, pay out when necessary.

It lets everyone, including those less well off, enjoy relatively low insurance premiums and you get personal mobility in return.

I’m well off, part of the reason I’m well off is because I was lucky enough to be born in a place that provided lots of stability and opportunity (schooling, health care, et al), it’s nice to give back. Sure, there’s flaws and waste in places, but I’ve had a family member go through extensive medical treatment because of cancer and I genuinely wish that level of care and options for everyone, so paying my taxes and health insurance premiums it is!

It would be solidarity, if there was not a heavy anti-solidarity side to it. You can import millions into this system that dont pay a dime, do not contribute to it (in fact need subsidys to make a living wage) but also consume the services in equal amounts.

That is not anti solidarity, I know Afternative für Deutschland voters like to frame it this way but it's not.

Please keep your narrow political views to yourself. Just because someone tells and true fact about hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees that didn’t payed a single Euro into the health insurance system keeps on benefiting from it, doesn’t make them an AfD voter. That’s a sentiment shared by people from every political spectrum in Germany from Linke to AfD.

If you like it or not, it is anti-solidarity if you benefit from a system that you have never contributed. That is just free loading and one should be ashamed of it.

The act of giving involves someone who receives, that doesn't make it anti-giving.

> it is anti-solidarity if you benefit from a system that you have never contributed

What's your stance on disabled children who can never sustain themselves?

I don’t have any problem with disabled children or even adults being taken care of by the society. But that’s not the point. Fully able bodied people that can work and contribute are taking advantage of the system without giving back anything to the system. That’s what’s anti-solidarity

> Fully able bodied people that can work and contribute are taking advantage of the system

Evidence? Earlier you seem to be complaining that refugees are admitted or taken care of in the first place. The former is off topic IMO while the latter is taken for granted. Now you apparently shift to objecting that they refuse to work. Which is it?

The act of giving involves a choice. If you don't have a choice its not you giving but someone else taking.

You don't get personally asked every day. Just like you don't personally ask all the people who paid taxes and did other things that enable you to use transportation, drink water and breather air, if this particular sip is fine with them, too.

You can't complain to society, the public at large, if you don't acknowledge this. Complain to other isolated individuals who "never agree to live in a society" or whatever.

"Should be ashamed" linked to refugees.

This is a clear comment showing that your moral compass is quite broken.

That’s not true. There is a limitation where one is charitable without taken advantage of. You cannot expect one to be a life long refugee and keep on sucking resources from the system. They need to start contributing back as soon as possible. Otherwise how sustainable and just do you think the system would be.

Also this thread is the perfect example that one cannot even question the fairness of abusing the system because then they would be labled as immoral or an AfD voter

Welcome to HN :-))

That isn't what happened here. You spewed unsubstantiated partisan taking points. Now (upon crying foul) you at least make a sensible argument but without any data supporting it. That isn't useful behavior for this website.

Aren't Ukrainians actually large net contributors?

They are and thus welcome

That is not an argument though. He gave a specific example.

You brought up only AfD, without giving any counter-example or refuting his arguments. That's now how a discussion should work.

See it from the other side: the argument IS ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT with regards to AfD or any other party. So, an argument should be made from this point of view as well.

They haven't brought up any argument at all, they simply said that "millions imported into the system do not contribute", which is not an argument or a fact. Just a statement. What is there to discuss? Why are you holding my comment to a different standard, because you don't agree or what?

But just for you I have looked up the facts: 1.1 million Ukrainian refugees, and half of them are employed by now. 1.1 million including children, elderly, and so on, people who aren't able to work. A) its not "millions" B) german overall employment rate is about 45.5 million employed people out of 83.5 million residents. So they are totally in line with the average population.

noone was complaining about Ukrainian refugees, you missed the other area where refugees come but never contribute back to society except crime

> or a fact. <

Obviously, you are not a local! Statistics all around, from Gov to private orgs, tell quite the opposite.

Then go ahead and present those. That's what we're all here on HN for unless I've a gross misunderstanding. Otherwise your comment is no better than partisan noise.

You can’t remove party politics from a discussion of national healthcare. It is absolutely relevant.

Then you also can't complain when people whose arguments you dismissed as party politics start voting for parties you don't like en masse. Which is coincidentally what's happening. But I'm sure you'll blame russian interference or some similar lazy excuse instead of doing any introspection.

As the main reason for my expatriation out fo a similar system I'd happily stay and pay if the service was good and the providence state was not collapsing.

As it stands its just an extraction machine to the boomer benefit and it wont survive by the time i will need it

I agree with you. People would not complain and happily pay a premium for a really good service. But that’s not the case in Germany.

Younger generation would absolutely end up paying even more in the future to sustain the health costs of aging boomers.

Also the pension scheme in Germany for a lack of better word, is a ponzi scheme. Again, younger generation is paying to sustain the boomers and by the time those young people goes into retirement, they would barely get anything out of what they have paid.

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