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Insurance for All: Germans Can't Fathom US Aversion to Obama's Healthcare Reform
Der Spiegel ^ | 05/11/2012 | Miriam Widman

Posted on 05/12/2012 2:21:57 PM PDT by Olog-hai

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.

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. …

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.

(Excerpt) Read more at spiegel.de ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Health/Medicine; Science; Society
KEYWORDS:
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To: jimbo123
German version of assisted suicide.

Cheap and effective.

Whats not to like?

Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

81 posted on 05/12/2012 4:34:49 PM PDT by Delta 21 (Oh Crap !! Did I say that out loud ??!??)
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To: Olog-hai

I really don’t care what Germans think.


82 posted on 05/12/2012 4:35:44 PM PDT by Freddd (No PA Engineers)
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To: dfwgator

Now that’s funny right there.


83 posted on 05/12/2012 4:40:12 PM PDT by gorush (History repeats itself because human nature is static)
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To: Olog-hai

Does the German healthcare include abortions and birth control for free? Does it include same pay for all doctors?Does it include death counseling and rationing? Taxes,?Does it attack the Catholic faith in Germany? Did they have to pass it to see what was in it? Does it incl;ude insurance for illegal immigrants?

Does Germany have any idea WTF is in Obamacare?


84 posted on 05/12/2012 4:41:17 PM PDT by Venturer
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To: Brilliant

Nope, Hitler was not German!


85 posted on 05/12/2012 4:51:21 PM PDT by ANKE69 (German Conservative and proud of it!!!)
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To: jimbo123
Inside your head must be something very wrong!
86 posted on 05/12/2012 4:56:29 PM PDT by ANKE69 (German Conservative and proud of it!!!)
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To: basil

You got that right. SIL is from Germany. I think she’s amused about this country going down the tubes. From what I’ve seen, if it’s FREE, to her it’s GREAT, and she wants it and all of it she can get. - I grew up with my dad having been a WWII combat veteran shell shocked all to heck, so to say the least, having to deal with a German in the family has not been easy. (I’ve had the “mind like a steel trap” thing thrown down at me and my nose rubbed in it numerous times; plus having to walk on eggshells about the “Hitler” thing.)

EVERYTHING that the government has taken over here has been an endless tax pit and a failure, unacknowledged by the government, of course. . Medicare, the Post Office, and a bunch of other stuff too numerous to mention. The government just starts a thing, and the more it fails, the more they double down on doing what they’ve always done.


87 posted on 05/12/2012 4:57:34 PM PDT by Twinkie (John 3:16)
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To: Olog-hai

Because Germans have a history of being subservient and “just following orders”. Ours is a history of “get out of my face and leave me the f... alone!”


88 posted on 05/12/2012 4:57:52 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: combat_boots

What, they don’t teach them that Germany declared war on the USA on 12/11/1941?


89 posted on 05/12/2012 5:04:36 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: gorush

“Hitler’s rise to power was an amazing time in history, a perfect storm as it were. But he was still an Austrian.”

I seem to recall Hitler became an official German citizen about the time he became Chancellor. I might be wrong, but it seems I read this in “The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich”.


90 posted on 05/12/2012 5:04:36 PM PDT by WKUHilltopper (And yet...we continue to tolerate this crap...)
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To: WKUHilltopper

Yes, Hitler was Austrian but was made a citizen of Brunswick, Germany, by a local Nazi official in 1932. This made him a citizen of Germany.


91 posted on 05/12/2012 5:19:54 PM PDT by risen_feenix
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To: A.A. Cunningham

Exactly. Bismark feared a communist takeover, Ergo, old age pensions, govt. health care, etc.


92 posted on 05/12/2012 5:34:37 PM PDT by oldsicilian
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To: Brilliant

Actually Hitler was an Austrian, he was born in Bavaria. By serving in a German regiment in WW1 he was allowed to petition for German citizenship.


93 posted on 05/12/2012 5:49:48 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: Alas Babylon!
Bismark was the great-granddaddy of the civil service bureaucracy.
94 posted on 05/12/2012 5:54:02 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: Eric in the Ozarks

“Advice from people who really enjoy marching in parades’’<< Ain’t it the truth? You watch those documentaries on tv and boy those Krauts sure could march! Stompin’ around like they owned the Earth. Until we got them out of the habit that is.


95 posted on 05/12/2012 5:58:43 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: jimbo123

Exactly what I was going to tell him/her. Great quote.


96 posted on 05/12/2012 6:05:18 PM PDT by jmacusa (Political correctness is cultural Marxism. I'm not a Marxist.)
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To: Olog-hai
Insurance for All: Germans Can't Fathom US Aversion to Obama's Healthcare Reform

I never realized that more than half of all Germans of working age are also on welfare.

So how do the Germans manage that many parasites?

97 posted on 05/12/2012 8:09:08 PM PDT by publius911 (Formerly Publius 6961, formerly jennsdad)
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To: Yardstick
Not if insurers are free to refuse people with preexisting conditions.

Sorry, Jack. That has never "been insurance."
Welfare, maybe.
Insurance? Never.

I don't really care what Obama says.

98 posted on 05/12/2012 8:14:06 PM PDT by publius911 (Formerly Publius 6961, formerly jennsdad)
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To: jmacusa
Hitler was not born in Bavaria, which is in Germany. He was born in Ranshofen, which is in Oberösterreich (Austria), across the Inn River from Bavaria (particularly Simbach am Inn).
99 posted on 05/12/2012 8:59:31 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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To: publius911

It’s called “beggar thy neighbor”.


100 posted on 05/12/2012 9:05:04 PM PDT by Olog-hai
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