What Germany’s Coal Miners Can Teach America About Medical Debt

From Noam N. Levey / KFF Health News: Germany, like the U.S., has a largely private healthcare system that relies on private doctors and private insurers. Like Americans, many Germans enroll in a health plan through work, splitting the cost with their employer. But Germany strictly limits how much patients have to pay out of their own pockets for a trip to the doctor, the hospital, or the pharmacy, making medical debt practically nonexistent.

Read the original story here.

Read more articles on healthcare systems related to wellbeing.

Issue Areas:

Employee Wellbeing, Medical Debt

Impact Areas:

Equity, Health and Wellness

Actors:

Government, Healthcare Organizations

Communities Served:

Workers

Strategies:

Easing Economic Burdens for Individuals

Success Factors:

Eliminating Barriers, Expanding Access, Help Rather Than Punishment, Meeting People Where They Are At, Overcoming the Big Challenges

Geographic Region:

Europe

Countries:

Germany

Date:

December 14, 2022

More Resources:

eToro Launches GoodDollar And Begins Delivering Universal Basic Income

From Lawrence Wintermeyer / Forbes: GoodDollar is a basic income product that works via the public blockchain network. Because blockchain is decentralized and public, this platform could be used globally, non-reliant on any one government. GoodDollar uses G$ coins which...

Portland Youth Exercise Power through Participatory Budgeting

From Rebecca Jacobson / Reed Magazine: Through Youth Voice Youth Vote, nearly 800 young people in Portland took part in a participatory budgeting process to decide how to spend $500,000 in American Rescue Plan Act funding. The winning projects, including...

Conversation with Alison Guzman

Alison Guzman is the Country Program Co-Director of MAPLE Microdevelopment Chile. As the co-director of a team based in Wallmapu (Mapuche Ancestral lands), they apply decolonizing methodologies, where indigenous local knowledge and local wisdom-based systems are prioritized to enhance an...

Portland group works to make wealth redistribution a reality through real estate

From Tiffany Camhi / OPB: Volunteers of the PDX Housing Solidarity Project are working to redistribute generational wealth through homeownership in Portland. The project connects people with ample resources to Black and Indigenous homebuyers and helps facilitate cash gifts, no-interest...

Universal basic income transfers better than subsidies; Madhya Pradesh model shows improvement in living standards

From Sunil Jain / The Financial Express: SEWA-INBI pilots a basic universal income program for two villages in Madhya Pradesh. These funds enabled residents to pay for facilities and electricity in their homes, buy better cooking fuel, increase the weight...

Conversation with Anita Chandra

Anita Chandra (she/her) is vice president and director of RAND Social and Economic Well-Being and a senior policy researcher at RAND. The division that she leads covers a range of topics at the intersection of social and economic policy and...