ABSTRACT
Three major goals are proclaimed by politicians, providers, and consumers in regard to future health care systems: concurrent solidarity, freedom of choice, and cost control. This chapter presents a general overview of the German health care scheme and explores the remuneration of providers. It explains about ambulatory care, hospital care, and pharmaceutical products. The chapter summarizes the German way of controlling cost. Discussions concerning German health policy are dominated by controversy over causes for the explosive increase in health care expenditures and proposals to stem spiralling costs. In West Germany, office-based physicians play the dominant role in the health care sector as a whole. In the 1920s, the statutory health insurance scheme was in great disorder. There are three characteristics of German hospital care that dominate the current discussion: the relatively long length-of-stay; the financing of hospital care and the explosive increase in hospital care expenditures; and the governmental planning of hospital facilities.
