Paradise Germany--except it's not
I just saw a post about some guy who supposedly came back from 3 years in Germany, and was swooning over its wonderful pension plan and "how its national healthcare works."
I don't know where this guy's Germany is, but it's not the one in Europe with the Rhein running down the western side of it, and with Berlin as its capital in the east. I live in that Germany, and my wife is German. It is not the one described in the post I read.
In THIS Germany, there is NO national health care. What they DO have is a patchwork system with many different semi-private companies and a few fully private companies. If you work for the government, they usually have you enrolled in one or the other. Like in the States, the employer pays part of the cost and the employee pays part. If you make "too much money," then you get kicked out altogether, and have to arrange "private" insurance. If you don't arrange your own insurance and are either unemployed or self-employed, you have none. There is help, depending on your circumstances, but if you don't actively seek it out, you have no coverage at all. This only affects a few hundred thousand people here--tiny compared to the USA, but huge if you live in a country that DOES have national health care, such as Canada, Britain or France. Anyone who has REALLY lived here knows this.
And pensions? Oh, sure. My wife retired early due to needing a drastic operation and the fact that she was being mobbed by her boss at work. Her pension, which she can start collecting in June 2017, will be somewhere between €750 and €850 a month. Without me, she would be living in a shelter and panhandling or else cleaning other people's apartments to rake in a couple of hundred euros a month under the table.
The bureaucrats and Eurocrats get nice cushy five figure pensions, paid by the populace out of their taxes. The normal mortals here in Germany do not. Government health care does finally kick in for her at age 65. For now, I make monthly payments for her of about €400 to keep her insured.
Don't get me wrong, it's not hell here. We get along ok, and there are many aspects we like of living here--otherwise we wouldn't. But it is also maddening to deal with uncaring bureaucrats, unflexible systems, crowding and the usual sweeping under the rug of things they'd rather not admit are there.
The Germany described in the post I refer to must be some other Germany. Maybe it's in Asia or somewhere in the South Pacific. It's not on any map we here in Germany know of.
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